


A Family Way

by queenitsy



Category: Troubleshooters Inc. - Suzanne Brockmann
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Past Abortion, Racist Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 18:26:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3906259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenitsy/pseuds/queenitsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Adam's sister is in a near-fatal car crash, he has to go home and deal with his homophobic family for the first time in years -- though at least he has Tony to lean on. But when his sister’s abusive ex-husband shows up, things go from difficult to downright dangerous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Family Way

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this on and off for ages now, inspired by trying to get the few references to Adam's family in HOT TARGET (which implies things with his family are hard but they're on speaking terms, except for his father) to line up with what we learned in WHEN TONY MET ADAM (about him being kicked out, etc). And, well... I love Jay Lopez more than is reasonable for such a minor character, and really wish he had his own book, so I figured the least I could do is write some fic where he gets to smooch a girl.
> 
> Further notes on what I tagged is in the end notes, in case you need more context to avoid triggers and whatnot.
> 
> This takes place a few years post-canon.

"Shit, dude. Check your phone," Zanella said, as Tony grabbed his bag.

Well, that didn't sound good. Tony grabbed his duffel and flipped his phone on, and sure enough, had several voicemails, all from Adam. Bracing himself, he listened to the first one: "Hey, so... I guess my sister is sick? I don't really know what's going on, and the na--my brother called me, so it must be bad. Call me back when you can, okay?"

His brother, Derek, the nazi. Or so Adam called him, because he was racist and homophobic. (Tony assumed it was an exaggeration that he was probably a member of the Freedom Network, but he wasn't actually sure.) Derek and Adam didn't really talk, for the obvious reason, so if he'd really called, then... yeah, something bad had happened.

He played the next message.

"It was a car crash. She's in a coma, it's not... not looking good. Fuck. My mom wants me to come see her, she didn't say it, but if it's... if they want me there... it's gotta be a saying goodbye thing, right? Fuck. Okay, yeah, fuck. _Fuck_." A few moments of just long, shuddering breaths. "Okay, I'm gonna call Eden, drop off the dogs if I can. Call me as soon as you're in. I could really... it would just be good to hear from you."

And then finally, "Eden's got the dogs, I'm catching a plane in 45 minutes. Christ, I'm not going to make it on time, fuck, I can't... Please just call, I need to hear your voice."

He must have looked extra grim by the time finished going through those, because everyone was watching him. Not exactly subtly, either. Zanella started to say something, but Tony shook him off and pressed the button to speed-dial Adam, who didn't pick up. The last call had been hours ago, but it was possible he was still on a plane. Or in an ER where no cell phones were allowed.

"Hey, it's me, just got boots on the ground. I'm gonna go find the senior chief now, then head straight to the airport. I'll let you know what flight I'm on as soon as I've got a ticket. Hold tight, okay? I love you, I'm on my way."

"That sounds bad," Lopez said. "Want me to go grab the senior?"

"Yes, please. Fuck." He glanced at his friends, who were waiting to see what he needed instead of getting home to their families for the first time in months. "Adam's sister was in a car crash, and it's come-say-goodbye bad. Which is bad enough, but his family is..." He shook his head. 

Out of everyone in his family, Adam's sister was the only one who was at all decent to him. They hadn't seen each other in person in a long time, but they spoke pretty often now, way more than once a year, which was all they'd had after Adam had been thrown out of home. She was the one who'd looked for him back then, cared if he lived or died. She was also the only one who had so much as sent them a wedding card.

Adam's mother was pretty much worthless, as far as Tony was concerned. When Adam was younger, she'd been desperate to try to convince him he wasn't gay, even before he'd actually come out. She was the one who'd put him into peewee football, which had made him miserable; she was the one who wouldn't let him audition for local plays, or even join his school's drama club. She monitored everything he watched and read, and censored anything she thought wasn't macho enough. And she was the one who'd slapped him and thrown him out of the house when he stopped pretending.

True, she'd mellowed out a bit with time -- it turned out that really losing her son, realizing he'd been left homeless and vulnerable, had been enough to make her a little bit more tolerant. But she wasn't really willing to reach out, not with Adam's father breathing down her neck. He was the one who genuinely hadn't given a shit that Adam had nearly starved, nearly frozen, nearly died, and he'd passed all of his homophobia on to Adam's brother.

Tony had never met them. He didn't want to. If it was up to him, they'd vanish off the face of the planet and never hurt Adam again, because all these years later Adam was _still_ hurting from the way they treated him. He was traumatized. True, he covered it with anger and disdain, but Tony had seen plenty of glimpses of the pain that lay underneath. 

Well, it looked like Tony was going to meet them now. And so help him god, if they said anything out of line to Adam, he wasn't going to be responsible for his actions.

\--

Tony had grabbed a nap on the flight, so that was something. He was a little disoriented from the trip -- he'd been in Bagdad 72 hours ago -- but he was more or less awake. All he had with him was his duffle bag, and the contents needed to be washed, but first things first. Adam had left him voicemail while he'd been on the flight, saying he'd probably stay the hospital until visiting hours ended. Which was 9, and it was only just past 8. So Tony headed straight there.

Adam didn't pick up his phone when he called, so he just walked to the desk to ask about Marie Ford (Adam's sister's married name, though she'd since gotten divorced) and get directions to the ICU. From there, he braced himself as he headed up. It was a small city -- a town, really -- and the county hospital wasn't very big, so it was a short trek. 

He found the waiting room by the ICU easily. It was lit by flickering florescent lights and the dim glow of vending machines. The chairs were obviously uncomfortable, and there, parked in them, were James and Derek Wyndham. Or so Tony would be willing to bet, not having ever seen pictures of them. But the younger one looked a lot like Adam, if nowhere near as fit or well styled. The older had the same hair and complexion, and maybe had looked similar in his youth. Now he was jowly and wrinkled, but there was still something there. Like Adam and his brother, he'd been handsome once upon a time.

Tony dropped his bag on one of the chairs and grabbed a couple of bucks from his wallet. He'd need caffeine for this. 

"Hey," the elder Wyndham said, glancing up at him. 

Tony glanced back. "Hey."

"You active duty?" He was glancing at Tony's duffle. Tony wasn't wearing BDUs, but with his olive t-shirt and cargo shorts, and, well, his body, it wasn't hard to guess.

"Navy," Tony said, then, because making a good impression couldn't hurt, "Just got back yesterday, actually."

"Welcome home. You visiting family here?"

"In-laws," Tony said, and fed his money into the machine. He grabbed his soda and poured back half the can. "How about you?"

"My daughter." His gaze dropped to the floor. 

"I'm so sorry," Tony said, and it was true.

He stood up and offered a hand. "James Wyndham. It's an honor to meet you."

Tony hesitated, then shook his head and started, "Actually, I --"

"Tony?"

Tony dropped the man's hand and spun, and sure enough, there was Adam. He waited for the hurt look at the idea of Tony shaking hands with his awful father, but realized the sheen of tears in Adam's eyes had already been there. Adam looked awful, utterly exhausted and brittle.

"Hey," Tony said, stepping towards him. He held out an arm and then there Adam was, arms around him, face pressed into his shoulder. It was the first time they'd seen each other in months, and Adam was nearly crying. "Hey, I'm here, babe. I'm here." He kissed Adam's temple, felt more than heard Adam's breath hitch. But he must have gotten it under control, and Tony couldn't blame him for not wanting to break down in front of his father and brother.

It took a minute for Adam to step away. Tony reached for his hand, though. He wasn't going to let Adam feel alone here, not even for a heartbeat.

"I was about to say," Tony said to the two Wyndhams who were staring at them in shock, "Actually, I had kind of guessed who you were. I'm Tony Vlachic -- Petty Officer, third class -- and I'm also your son-in-law. Nice to finally meet you, sorry it's under such awful circumstances."

Tony had intentionally kept his demeanor pleasant, but the Wyndham boys didn't match it. James went tense, and the silent Derek stood. Tony didn't let any of his dislike of them into his body language as he looked over at Adam again.

"How is she? How's your mom holding up?"

"She's..." Adam trailed off, shaking his head. "It's bad. Mom's still in there, but I just... needed some air."

"How could you bring him here?" 

Ah. The nazi had remembered how to talk. Tony glanced at him, but Adam turned and glared, snapping, "Screw you."

Tony squeezed his hand, and said in that same pleasant tone, "You're Derek, right? Nice to meet you."

"Fuck off, you faggot."

Tony shouldn't have been caught off-guard, but somehow he hadn't expected that. Adam had pointed out to him a few times that as a six-foot-tall Navy SEAL who had passed as straight for years, he hadn't exactly had a typical gay man's experience, in as much as such a thing existed. He wasn't used to slurs being thrown at him, and until he and Adam had become very public, he hadn't been used to getting weird or disapproving looks, either. It was like someone had thrown a glass of ice water in his face.

But it was Adam who stepped forward and said, "Shut the fuck up. Don't talk to him that way. Don't you fucking _dare_."

Derek was stepping forward now, too. Tony dropped Adam's hand and moved, planting himself firmly between them. "That's really the first impression you wanted to go with, man? Fine." He glanced at Adam, who looked grim. "Here's how this is going to work. I'm not going to ask for an apology, because frankly you're not worth my time. But if you ever talk like that to _Adam_ again, we're going to have a problem. You understand?"

Derek hesitated, his fists clenched, and Tony waited. He really didn't want this confrontation, not with Adam already so emotionally drained. He had absolutely no doubt about his ability to handle Derek -- Derek and his father, if he had to -- but he didn't want to deal with the fall out. He wasn't stupid, he wasn't going to swing first if it came down to that, which would hopefully help him avoid an assault charge, but he also wasn't going to stand by and let anyone verbally abuse his husband.

Derek finally settled on a rejoinder, an echo of Adam's greeting: "Screw you."

But he didn't come any closer. Maybe it had finally occurred to him that Tony was taller, broader, and much, much stronger than he was. Tony didn't generally like intimidating people. He didn't like the idea of people being scared of him. But if his SEAL training was going to make life easier for Adam, he'd take that fear gladly.

Adam reached for his hand. "Come on, babe. You've been traveling for days. I got a hotel room, let's go get some sleep."

Tony nodded and reached for his bag. He glanced back at the two Wyndhams and then let Adam tug him out of the room. But they only made it a few steps before Adam was in his arms again, practically trembling. But with fury this time, since what he said was, "I am so fucking sorry, Tony. I hate him. I goddamn hate him. I wish I could say that I can't believe he'd say that to you, but..."

"It's not your fault, and I don't care about him at all. Seriously, Adam." He stepped away enough for Adam to see his face. "It's fine. I'm fine, as long as you are."

Adam nodded, but he was rattled by everything. He didn't have his game face on and was obviously miles from fine.

Tony waited a minute before asking, "Do you want to introduce me to your mother now? Or wait for tomorrow?"

"Oh, Jesus. Yeah, we should... before Dad tells her about all of that. Yeah, sorry, I'm not thinking straight right now."

Tony leaned in to murmur in his ear, "There's nothing straight about either one of us, babe. I love you."

Adam managed a momentary almost-smile, then led the way into one of the ICU rooms. There were two women in it: his sister Marie, eyes shut, plugged into a million wires and tubes, with a mask over her face. She was bruised all over and half of her hair had been shaved so stitches could be put in on one side of her skull. Her chest was rising and falling slowly, and while that and the sucking sound of the oxygen machine and a monitor beeping all proved that she was alive, she wasn't even twitching.

The other woman was his mother, Sarah. Adam clearly took after his father, but there was something familiar her jaw and cheekbones. She was sitting in a wooden chair next to the bed, and looked up sharply through damp eyelashes at them.

"Hey, Ma," Adam said. His voice was gentle, tentative. "I just wanted to... Tony just got here. I told you he might come, remember?"

"Your father won't like this."

"Yeah, I know, but..." Adam shrugged.

"Hello, ma'am," Tony said, once again going for friendly. He offered her a hand, and to his surprise she actually shook it, though she didn't get up. "I'm so sorry about..."

"Yeah." She wiped her cheek. "Did you ever meet her? I know she was... she was closer to Adam than..."

"No, ma'am," Tony said. "Not in person, but we chatted on the phone a few times."

"Oh. That's... at least you got to..." She broke down in tears, and a second later, Adam was crouching next to the chair, her hands in his.

"She's gonna be okay, Ma, she's gonna be fine," Adam said. "You know Marie, she's more stubborn than I am, she's gonna pull through."

His mother nodded shakily. "I know she will. God willing."

"Yeah," Adam said, then, "Tony's been in transit for three days straight now -- his team was just in Iraq -- he needs some sleep, so we're gonna... gonna head out. But you can call if you need me, okay?"

His mother fixed a gaze on him, and Adam squirmed. "Are you going to pray for her, Adam?"

Tony held his breath. Adam's relationship with religion was... conflicted, to say the least. From what he'd told Tony, he'd grown up knowing he was gay and believing he was broken, that he was going to go to hell for it. He'd rejected god entirely once his family kicked him out, but like with so much else, his rage and defiance were largely a cover for deep fear. Sometimes he believed, sometimes he didn't. But even when he did, he wasn't someone who prayed. He never went to church. He loathed organized religion.

But Adam said, "Yeah, I will."

He stood up, walked over to the other side of the bed, and reached out to touch his sister's unmoving hand. She didn't respond at all, of course she didn't, and the contact only lasted a second. Then he walked back to the door, nodding at Tony to follow.

"Goodnight, ma'am," Tony said quickly, and shut the door behind him.

\--

They swung by the hotel, but given that it was almost nine and Adam looked so out of it, Tony volunteered to go out and find them dinner on his own. The town didn't exactly have a ton of fine dining options, but there was a pizzeria only a few blocks from the hotel. It was overrun with teenagers, but otherwise pretty decent. While he was waiting for his pizza, he ducked into the CVS next door to pick up drinks and some other supplies.

When he got back to the hotel, he found Adam sprawled on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He hadn't turned on any lights or the TV, even though he hated quiet. He didn't even respond to Tony's presence for a second, and only the fact that his eyes were open gave away that he was actually awake.

Tony set the pizza on the coffee table and sat down next to him.

"You okay, babe?"

Adam let out a sigh and sat up, reached for Tony's hand, and just sagged. "Yeah, I'm just... tired. Thanks for picking up dinner. Thanks for... for coming all the way out here. God. Did you even get to stop by the house?"

Tony squeezed his hand. "Nah, the timing of the flights worked out pretty well. I was able to get on one without having to wait around, so Iz dropped me at the airport and said he'd drop my stuff at home. Everything in my bag needs to be washed. Actually, I could use a shower, too, come to think of it."

"Three days in transit, right?"

"Yeah." Tony yawned. He could push through the exhaustion and jetlag, but that didn't mean he didn't feel it. He'd stay up and functional for as long as Adam needed him, and would crash whenever Adam did. "Should we eat?"

"Yeah. I'm just not that hungry."

Adam sounded a million miles away. Tony thought for a minute about telling him to eat anyway, because he needed his strength; food would help. But instead, he just twisted on the bed and pulled Adam closer to him. He just held Adam for a moment, until Adam relaxed into his arms. And even though things were seriously messed up, he couldn't help but be relieved. 

He'd been gone for months, which meant months without holding Adam. Even as bad as things were right now, the world was a better place when he had Adam in his arms. 

He kissed Adam's temple gently. "You know I don't mind being here, right? I know this is difficult, but I'm glad I got home in time to come help, so you don't have to deal with all of this alone."

Adam nodded a little. "I know. I... I knew you would come, too, even though you must be dead tired and I wish this hadn't happened. God, I just wanted to be there when you got home and to, you know, welcome you home properly." He laughed a little, but it was a hollow, harsh noise. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," Tony said. "And I know you said you're okay, but it's okay if you're not."

"I don't even know what I am," Adam said. "Honestly, I'm so completely freaking out that I've come back around to calm. Like. Everything is so fucked, I hate it so much, I fucking hate my father and my brother, I'm so, so, so sure Marie is going to die and I just -- it's so much I can't even think about it. I spent all day in shock. Just sitting there, in the ICU, thinking, _is this really happening_?"

"Yeah, I know that feeling," Tony said. Sometimes they'd run into something out in the world that felt surreal, that he couldn't process. He usually just needed time out of the thick of things to start to feel the rage and sorrow and then work through them. The dam always broke eventually. It would for Adam, too, he was sure. The only question was what would happen then, if Adam would be okay or if he was going to have a total meltdown. 

"Am I a horrible person if, right now, I just want to..." He looked up at Tony, caught his eye. "To ignore all of that, and the fact that you bought us dinner, and just think about how this is the first time I've seen you in months? And get naked?"

"Dunno, am I a horrible person because I bought condoms and lube when I was out?" Tony returned. He hadn't planned to mention it, he just wanted to have them at the ready in case. It had been a long time he'd been deployed.

Adam laughed. "Oh my god."

"I wasn't going to... if you didn't say anything, if you don't want to --"

"I always want to," Adam said, his hands going to the hem of Tony's t-shirt, hiking it up. 

Tony let him tug it off, but before Adam could start removing any more clothing he caught his wrist and said, "I really mean it. It's okay if you're not in the mood, with everything going on."

"Tony, I am _always_ in the mood," Adam said, and shifted so he was straddling Tony's lap, and kissed him. 

And _kissed_ him.

Tony's hands clutched at Adam's sides and he let himself get lost in sensation, at least until Adam pulled away, wrinkling his nose. "Don’t take this the wrong way, but you really do kind of need a shower."

"Told you so," Tony agreed, though he knew full well that wouldn't stop Adam from getting them both naked. Not unless... He gestured at the door to the bathroom. "After you."

Adam gave him a grin, stood, and led the way.

\--

Sunday morning meant they were alone in the hospital -- well, alone meaning Adam's family wasn't there. Which meant it was a way better visiting time than later in the day. There had been a few changes over night, though, thankfully. Marie still hadn't woken, but all of her vitals were stronger. And there were signs that, thank God, she wasn't brain dead. If she woke up, she'd still have a tough time -- she'd need months of physical therapy for her leg. But at least now that _if_ looked like it was over 50%. 

It wasn't much, but it was a little better.

Tony spent most of the morning reading, while Adam fiddled on his phone and occasionally talked -- not exactly to Tony, not exactly to Marie, but just because he hated quiet. Tony had always enjoyed Adam's tendency to deliver his internal monologue out loud. So when Adam started talking, he listened and laughed, and when Adam lapsed into quiet, staring out the window or looking at Marie, he sat quietly, too.

It was well after noon when Adam said, "We should go get lunch soon. Not at the cafeteria here because, ick, depressing, but my parents will be here soon anyway."

"Sure," Tony said, not sure if Adam wanted to wait until his parents showed up, or leave before they did.

But before they could go anywhere, someone knocked on the door. It was a man, young and wiry, dressed in what Tony guessed were his church clothes. Except, well, he had a light pink button down had a phone with a rainbow cover in his hand. He slid it into his back pocket as he asked, "Is this Mrs. F's room? Oh. Oh my God."

"Are you one of Marie's students?" Adam guessed.

"Former," the kid said. "I'm a senior in college, actually, and -- oh my god, you're Adam Wyndham!" He did a doubletake between Marie and Adam, and then the door, and then Tony, and then Adam again. 

"Um, yep," Adam said. "Marie is my sister -- Wyndham is her maiden name. So..."

"How did I not know that?" The kid's cheeks were bright red. Tony bit down a smile. The kid obviously recognized Adam, and in a way that wasn't just a film buff noticing an actor. Tony caught Adam's eye, and Adam managed a smile.

"I haven't been home in awhile." Adam offered his hand. "So I'm Adam, and that's my husband, Tony. And you are?"

"Oh! Uh, Chris. Mrs. F. was my favorite teacher, and I heard what happened at church this morning and had to come see her." He shook Adam's hand as he spoke, but then trained off, looking down at Marie. "Is she gonna be okay?"

"It's hard to say, still," Adam said. "We're hopeful, though."

The kid -- Chris -- nodded. He looked stricken, watching Marie. Finally, he said quietly, "I didn't like school, but she... in her class, no one messed with me, you know? School was so shitty and I got hassled all the time but the second I set foot in her classroom, I was _safe_. And she made me apply to colleges. Like. _Made_ me."

"Oh, yeah?" Tony asked. 

"Yeah," he said. "Thank God she did, too, because college rocks."

"So are you a fan of Adam's?" Tony asked, amused.

Chris nodded, still blushing. "I can't believe I didn't know you were related to Mrs. F."

"I can't believe I didn't know Marie was... that she had that safe space thing going on," Adam said, looking at Marie with something like wonder.

"Really? I mean, it makes sense, since you're..." Chris trailed off, shrugging.

And it did make sense, Tony realized. Marie hadn't always been tolerant, but she'd become more so with time. She was a high school teacher, and yeah, seeing a kid who doubtlessly reminded her of Adam must have made her care enough to stand up for him. Which was more than any teachers had done for Adam himself.

"Yeah," Adam said. "She doesn't talk about work much, though. But that's cool, that she helped you get into college."

They chatted for a few minutes, and it was kind of a relief. Adam usually didn't talk to fans quite this extensively, but he was good at small talk, and it was nice that someone in this town actually liked him. And it really was amazing that Marie had come so far -- that she'd gone from outing Adam when he was in high school to standing up for high school kids just like him.

Eventually, Adam's parents and Derek came in, too. At which point Chris excused himself with a quick, "Nice to meet you, I really hope Mrs. F. is okay!" 

"I was really hoping to see you in church this morning, Adam," his mother said, instead of anything civil like _hello_.

His father didn't say anything. He glanced at Tony for a second, and then away. So apparently Tony was being shunned along with Adam. Which was fine. He didn't actually care, and the silence was better than the horrible things that might come out of Mr. Wyndham's mouth. 

All Adam said was, "Sorry, Ma."

Tony blinked. He would have expected Adam to fight with her about that. When he'd come out -- well, when he'd been outed -- she'd dragged him to church, trying to pray away the gay. When Adam had refused to cooperate by lying, she'd thrown him out. And yet, she wondered why he didn't go to church?

Tony squeezed Adam's hand. Adam squeezed back, then dropped it and stood up. "The doctors say she's looking better. She'll probably wake up in a day or two, maybe even today."

Everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief. Adam smiled, just a little. 

"I know, thank God, right? Well, since you're all here, Tony and I are going to get lunch. We'll be back in awhile."

"We just got here," his mother said.

"And I've been here all morning," Adam answered, voice tight. He looked around at his family, and Tony could see the second it was too much. Adam's expression was grim, with a tight-lipped smile that had no joy in it. "Why, did you actually want to talk to me today? Pretend you're happy that I'm here? Act like I'm part of this family?"

"Hey, shut the hell up," Derek snapped, as Adam's mom started crying.

"Why?" Adam snapped back. "I'm here because I love Marie. She was the only one in this family who gave half a shit about me. You can pretend all you want, but I know you only called me because you need help with the medical bills."

Well, that was news to Tony. But it made sense. Adam's mom let out another sob, and his father looked away guiltily. He still hadn't spoken a word directly to Adam. Even Derek swallowed whatever he was about to say.

"Fuck this," Adam muttered. "I'll be back later."

He stormed towards the door, and Tony followed him out. Adam pushed the button for the elevator and paced madly while he waited for it to come. Tony stood by calmly, waiting. They stepped into the elevator together, out on the ground floor, and finally Adam snapped, "I'm not wrong. That's why they called me."

"I believe it," Tony said. 

"So I don't fucking have to pretend to be polite. They don't bother being nice to me, so why should I? I don't care how fucking selfish that sounds. I hate them, I fucking hate them, and if Marie dies I'm never going to speak to them again."

"Hey," Tony said softly, and right there in the hospital lobby he pulled Adam into his arms. Adam was trembling with anger and whatever else he was feeling, yesterday's numbness finally burned off. "It's okay, Adam. It's not selfish to want your family to love you."

"They're not my family." His voice was full of venom. "If it was me in the hospital, me who'd had the accident, who'd be there? You and Eden and Ben. Your mom cares more about me than that woman. I have family, but not here. Not these people."

Tony was actually relieved to hear that, because it had taken so long for him to convince Adam that his family loved him; that Eden and Jenni adored him, not just tolerated him because their husbands all worked together. His family had messed him up so thoroughly that some days he couldn't believe that anyone loved him, not even Tony.

"You're right," Tony said. "You're absolutely right."

"I know I am," Adam said, but with no conviction. His voice got shakier when he added, "Jesus Christ, Tony, what if she does die? What if she... what if..."

"Hey, hey," Tony said again. "It's okay, Adam. The doctors say she's getting stronger."

"That doesn't mean she'll make it."

"And dwelling on that won't help," Tony said. "You don't have to be optimistic if you don't want to, I don't blame you, but this is hard enough without being fatalistic about it."

"Easy for you to say. It's their fault I'm fatalistic." He made a face. "It's also their fault I'm such a whiny bitch. God, how do you even stand me? That was terrible."

"You're allowed to be as terrible as you want while you deal with this bullshit," Tony said. "I'm pretty sure that's the rule."

Adam stared up into his eyes. "I'm so fucking scared," he confessed quietly. "Marie and I were just... she wanted to come visit us, she was going to come this summer. She wanted to meet you. She actually wanted that."

"I want to meet her, too," Tony said. "And hopefully I will. But if not, I'll always know she wanted to, that she cared, and she loved you, and that's worth a lot, too."

"Not as much as having her alive."

"No," Tony agreed, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to pull Adam out of this pit. Not that he could blame Adam for being upset and scared at all. "But we'll get through it. No matter what happens, we'll get through it."

"Sometimes I hate how strong you are," Adam mumbled. 

"How strong I am?" Tony almost laughed. "I haven't been through even a quarter of the shit you have. I've been so lucky. But you've survived everything, you've been through so much bullshit, and you're still standing. You're here for your sister, even though it means you've got to deal with those hateful people. You're incredible."

Adam looked away, uncomfortable, and Tony reached for his hand.

"Lunch?" Tony asked.

"Yeah." Adam swallowed. "All the restaurants in this town suck, just as a warning."

"They've gotta beat MREs." Tony led him towards the parking lot. "I should bring you one to try sometime. It's like baby food. _Warm_ baby food."

"Well, that's horrifying and now I'm not hungry." Adam took a deep breath, gathering strength, locking down whatever he was feeling. Tony wished he wouldn’t do that, that he'd let himself feel whatever he needed to, but couldn't blame him for trying to keep up the façade. So he just followed Adam out to the car.

\--

The shouting could be heard from the second they stepped off the elevator after lunch. Tony didn't even think, just let instincts take over. He sprinted towards Marie's room, where the ruckus was coming from, the shouted words barely penetrating: "She killed my baby, she's a fucking _murderer_!"

Someone with much lighter hair than any of the Wyndhams was inside, along with Adam's parents. He'd ripped the IV and some of the tubes off of Marie, and the machinery was all protesting with alarms. Tony didn't hesitate, just grabbed the guy and hauled him back, slammed him face-first against the wall with his arms locked behind his body as a hoard of doctors and nurses and orderlies poured in.

"What the hell is going on?" a red-headed doctor roared, taking command and making herself heard despite her extremely small stature.

Adam's mom, predictably, was crying. Adam's dad said, "He's her ex-husband, he's fucking crazy, she has a restraining order against him."

Tony said, "Call the police." The guy started squirming, yanking his arms, but Tony's grip was firm and he knew how to keep a hostile in a hold. 

"She _doesn't_ have the order anymore," the guy snarled, when he couldn't pull out of Tony's grip. "She's my wife, she killed our baby, who the fuck are you to even touch me? Get the fuck off me, get the _fuck_ off me!"

"Ex-wife," Adam spat from somewhere in the room. "He's her abusive, piece of shit, fucking psycho ex-husband."

Some kind of security guard finally came in. Adam's father explained, "He came in here, ranting like a lunatic, and started pulling out all of ... all of that." He gestured at the doctors who were scrambling to get Marie hooked back up to the equipment. "She had a restraining order against him -- I don't know when it was filed -- and he shouldn't be here. He should be in jail."

"And who are you?" the guard asked Tony.

"Her brother-in-law," Tony said. "I'm also a Navy SEAL. Could you please cuff this guy so I can let go of him?"

The guard did as he was asked, and though Tony released the man, he didn't back off very far. But the guy wheeled around, cuffs and all, to stare at Tony. Realization must have dawned as he looked back and forth from Tony to Adam, and then let loose a string of epithets. Tony blocked them out, even as the guard hauled the man out of the room, and police sirens rang nearby.

The red-headed doctor finally stepped back from Marie. "She's fine, thank God, he didn't manage to damage her, just scare the crap out of me. You there, brother-in-law. You have an actual name?"

"Tony Vlachic, ma'am." 

"You're going to need to fill out an incident report. Good thing you were here, though." 

"Isn't it?" Adam said innocently, flashing a shit-eating smile as everyone turned to stare at him. He was looking directly at his father, who looked away.

The doctor sighed. "What was he yelling, before all of those horrible slurs?"

"He accused Marie of murder," Mrs. Wyndham finally said. "Which is insane. Marie never had a child, and she'd never hurt anyone. And he -- he used to hurt her. He's got a serious record, I didn't know he was out of jail." 

"The police will handle him," the doctor assured them. "I'll have the officer come up here to talk to all of you."

\--

It took an hour to finish with the cops, mostly because they were incompetent. Everyone who'd been in the room repeated what had happened over and over. Tony managed to keep his temper in check, though it was a close thing. It turned out the local police weren't any more comfortable with his and Adam's relationship than Adam's family was. 

He could mostly ignore that, too, but Adam was having a harder time with it. Not that Tony could blame him: he now had to worry about his sister's health, his shitty family, a violent ex, _and_ the local cops looking like they'd happily play smear the queer with him if they got a chance.

Tony was not going to give anyone that chance. 

It was even longer before Tony got a chance to get Adam alone. They were in the waiting room where Tony had first met the Wyndhams, while the family was still in with Marie. The cops had finally left, and even though it was only mid-afternoon, Adam looked like he was dead on his feet.

"So this is a disaster," Adam said, sitting on the table facing Tony's chair. "And I need to tell you something. You can't tell anyone. _Can't._ I'd make you swear but I know I can trust you."

"Of course."

Adam took a deep breath. "Marie did have an abortion. I'm the only one who knows. It was when she was trying to leave Fisher, she was terrified if he found out... he still had access to her bank account, she was worried he'd know something was happening if she withdrew enough money to... she called me. She asked if I would loan her the money for it."

"And you did?" Tony assumed.

Adam nodded. "She was so terrified of him, he... it was really bad, Tony. If they had a kid, she'd never be rid of him, he'd never be out of her life, and he... he would not exactly have been father of the year material."

Understatement. Tony had no doubt that Fisher Ford would have been as abusive a father as he had been a husband. "Jesus," he mumbled.

"We were barely in touch then -- this was, like, five years ago. You were deployed, we'd only been together a few months, and I... she told the family she was getting away from it all for a weekend, trying to take a vacation from the divorce, and I flew out to be with her. She was going to do it alone. She was so scared."

"And five years ago is about when you two started talking regularly again," Tony realized.

Adam nodded. "After that, she made a point of calling me more, making sure we were talking at least once a month. But she was... she was so scared of people finding out. Especially Fisher. And he... he used to seriously hurt her. I don't know how he found out, but..." He buried his head in his hands. "If this doesn't land him back in jail then... shit, it could get really bad."

"Yeah," Tony said. "The vibe I got from that guy was not a good one. I'll be honest, between him, Derek, and those cops, this is going to sound really paranoid, but I don't want you walking around alone."

"I'm not the one he's after," Adam said. 

"Yeah, but after this, he's going to be pretty pissed at me -- and you're an easier target," Tony said. He knew Adam didn't want to hear that, one more reason to be worried and stressed, but he wasn't going to lie. Bottom line, he was going to keep Adam safe.

Adam shut his eyes. "I know you're not kidding. But Tony, come on. That's a bit... a bit too much."

"Probably," Tony said. "But I'd rather be safe than sorry, if it's all the same to you. And it's not like I was going to be doing anything except being here for you anyway."

"I guess that's a fair point." Adam was drooping. "Thank God you were here. Fisher could have killed her. If you hadn't been here..."

"I'm glad I was, too," Tony said. "Are you okay? Do you want to hang out here, or go crash for awhile? Today has been a lot."

"Yeah," Adam said. "Yeah, I think crashing sounds good. Let me just say goodbye to Marie."

Derek had arrived at some point while the police had been talking to Tony. He watched Tony with an expression that was a lot less hostile and actually a little bit awed, as Adam walked over to take Marie's unmoving hand. So Tony took a chance, and nodded hello to Derek, who nodded back.

"You got a sec?" Tony asked. Derek glanced at Adam and Marie, and nodded. Tony stepped out into the hall again, and talked quietly. "Fisher Ford, what was he in jail for?"

"Aggravated assault, armed robbery. It was supposed to be five years, but got out after fifteen months," Derek said.

"Did he have any accomplices?"

"Yeah," Derek said. "Why? Do you think... you think one of them might come after Marie?"

"I don't know," Tony said. "Do you know anything about what he was saying? Him and Marie having a baby?"

"No way," Derek said. "Marie wants kids so bad, if she'd ever been pregnant she'd have told us all, and she'd never, never, never have... how could he even accuse her of that?"

"And the way he came after Marie today, the way he was shouting that she was his wife, whenever someone said ex. Has he always been like that?"

"Yeah, he was like, fixated on her," Derek said. "He kept showing up at her place after they split up, she had to get the restraining order and moved back in with Mom and Dad. He left her alone, at least for awhile, and then he got arrested. And he came back to see her after he got out, and she got it renewed. She was really scared of him."

"Shit." Tony took a deep breath. "Thanks. Jesus, what a mess."

"My mom said you grabbed him like it was nothing. Doc Rose, she said you were... she said you probably saved Marie's life, taking him out like that."

"I've had a lot of training," Tony said. 

Derek stared at the ground. Tony wondered what he was thinking, but didn't wait for him to say anything. Just stepped back inside the room and said, "Adam."

Adam looked up at him. He was sitting in the chair his mother usually occupied -- she'd had to go home and rest, too, too freaked out by Fisher's appearance. "You look grim. Tell me the nazi kept his mouth shut."

"Fuck you," Derek said from the doorway.

"No, I was just asking him about Fisher. You know how I'm feeling paranoid?" Tony said.

"Yeah?"

"I don't think leaving Marie alone is a good idea. She's probably fine tonight, if Fisher's still locked up, but if they don't charge him with anything he'll be out tomorrow. And I doubt he's this easy to discourage."

"Shit," Adam said. "Are you for real? Is this some kind of SEAL super sense of yours?"

"Yeah, kinda. Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I really, really have a bad feeling. I think we should prepare for something bad to go down," Tony said. He was already mentally scrolling through his contact list. He was sure any of his teammates would come if he asked, but he wanted to make sure he wasn't taking them away from anything major.

"Prepare how?" Derek asked.

Tony barely glanced at him. "If we find out Fisher's not being held, I'm going to want to stay here with her, just in case."

"Okay," Adam said. "But you'll have to eat and sleep and," he shot a look at Derek, "fulfill certain conjugal duties. So if there's really a problem..."

"I'm going to make some calls, and see if anyone is free to come out here for a few days," Tony said. 

"Tony, come on. That's not... it's..." Adam took a breath. "Be real. You seriously think there's a danger, here? Like, enough danger to call for backup?"

"Yes." Tony held his gaze. "I hate to say it, Adam, but I do."

"Shit." Adam sank down further in his chair. "So, does this qualify as a clusterfuck yet?"

Tony laughed despite himself. "Yeah, babe, total charlie-foxtrot." He looked over at Derek. "You okay to stay here for awhile? We're going to crash and then get dinner. Things should be fine tonight, but I still think someone should stay."

"Yeah," Derek said. "I'll call Adam if there's... if anything comes up."

"Good. Keep your phone on, keep your eyes open." Tony held out his hand, and this time, Derek shook it. 

"Well, that was unexpected," Adam said, leading the way out. "Derek cooperating with you? I can promise he wouldn't have if I'd asked, but..."

"I think the doctor may have overstated what I did earlier," Tony said. 

"No, I think you underestimated what it looked like to people who don't hang out with SEALs," Adam said, as they stepped in for the now-familiar elevator ride. "Fisher was trying to kill my sister, and you came out of nowhere and restrained him. I'm the only one who was there who realizes you could have knocked him out if he'd kept struggling -- or snapped his neck."

"That's a bit extreme," Tony said.

"I know. I'm not saying you would have. Just that you _could_ have." He led Tony towards the car. "Who do you want to call about this?"

"Chief Lopez," Tony decided. "I don't want to take Dan away from Jenni and the baby, and with Ben staying at Izzy and Eden's place, I don't want to ask Izzy to come out here, either. And I'm sure Jenk would do it, but..."

"But he's married, and Jay isn't," Adam said.

Tony nodded. "Exactly."

\--

"Hey, Chief," Tony said tiredly. Adam was lying on the hotel bed, eyes shut but not quite asleep yet. He'd kicked off his boots and his jeans, and was pretty clearly waiting for Tony to climb in with him -- or on top of him. Which he was definitely going to. But first things first.

"Hey, TV. How's Adam and his family?"

"Adam's holding up," and sure enough Adam was awake, because he snorted a little, "but his family is... we've got kind of a problem."

"What do you need? How can I help?" Lopez asked immediately.

"Have I ever mentioned that I love you? I'd definitely leave Adam for you, Chief."

Adam flipped him off, not opening his eyes, and Lopez laughed, too. "I don't swing your way, but it's nice to know I have options. So what's going on?"

"We've got a nasty situation with a stalker. Marie's ex-husband showed up at the hospital today and started wrecking her equipment. According to Adam, he used to beat the crap out of her, and was not happy when she left him -- and he's done time in the last few years, including for assault."

"Oh, man," Lopez said, which was his personal equivalent of _oh fuck_. 

Tony filled him in on what happened, and his worry that Fisher would either be bailed out or even not charged. It was the kind of small town where knowing the cops could go a long way, and Tony had a suspicion that Fisher was something of a good ol' boy around here. 

"I know it's a lot to ask for something that's probably nothing," Tony said, "but I was hoping, if you're able to wrangle a few days..."

"I'm already packing. I'll hit the base to handle the paperwork and be on the first flight tomorrow. Where am I flying?"

"I'll text you. Thanks, Chief. It really... it means a lot to us that you'd do this."

"Of course. See you soon."

Tony plugged his phone in and set it aside, then kicked off his sneakers and looked at Adam, who'd finally opened his eyes.

"So," Tony said. "Did you want to nap? Orrrr, I hear I have some conjugal duties to fulfill."

Adam smirked up at him and beckoned. "I mostly said that just to freak Derek out. But if you're offering..."

"When am I not offering?" Tony asked. He unzipped his pants, pulled them off and tossed them over a chair with Adam's. Adam grinned tiredly as Tony lowered himself onto the bed, directly on to Adam, propping himself up on his arms so they were nose to nose.

Adam wrapped an arm around Tony and yanked him down, kissed him fiercely. Tony slid his hips down, rubbing against Adam with only a couple of thin layers of fabric between them...

Oh, _yeah_.

\--

The call came at 8:05 AM. Adam was in the shower but it was his phone ringing, so Tony grabbed it. The ID just read _nazi_ , and Tony had to remind himself that Derek's grudging respect towards him didn't invalidate a lifetime of his abuse towards Adam. But he still answered the phone with, "This is Vlachic, what's going on?"

"Oh, uh, hey," Derek said. "So there's good news and bad news."

"Bad news first," Tony said, reaching for his own phone. He had a message from Chief Lopez that his flight wouldn't be in until early afternoon, unfortunately. 

"Fisher made bail. Some of his friends got together for it and... well, obviously he's not supposed to come around the hospital, but..."

"Shit," Tony mumbled. He'd been hoping that Lopez's arrival would prove to be totally unnecessary -- that Fisher would be stuck in lock-up for days, until Marie was mobile enough to be moved, and they could come up with some kind of plan.

"Yeah," Derek said. "But Marie woke up. She's not... I mean, she's barely... she's still out most of the time, obviously I got here right at 8 and they told me, I haven't seen her awake yet. She didn't really talk or anything, but..."

"That's excellent," Tony said. He glanced at the bathroom door. "Adam and I'll be there ASAP."

"Okay. Okay, cool. Thanks."

Tony ended the call. Judging by Derek's tone, he'd seriously spooked the man. Which was probably why he'd been there at 8 AM sharp, as soon as the hospital allowed visitors in -- which Tony added to his mental list. He was pretty sure, after the previous day's blow up, that they'd agree to give him and Lopez 24/7 access, but he should probably actually request it. 

He texted Lopez with the update, then opened the bathroom door so Adam would hear him. "Babe, we need to get moving. Marie's awake, Fisher's out of lock up, and your brother is freaking out about it. Though, I'll be honest, I'm less concerned with that."

Adam laughed, and a second later the water turned off. He pulled back the curtain and smirked, doubtlessly at the way Tony appreciated his body, though they didn't really have time for Tony to do more than take a nice, long look.

"You are so good for my self-esteem," Adam said, grabbing the towel. "Marie's awake, really?"

"Well, she's asleep again now, and she wasn't able to communicate much, but yes. She woke up last night."

He could see the relief hit Adam, the realization that this meant Marie was going to be okay. Or at least, some version of okay. She might still have brain damage, and she was going to have a hell of a time relearning how to walk, if she ever managed it. But she wasn't dying.

"So I should block out some leave this summer for her visit," Tony said, grinning, and Adam kissed him. He tasted like toothpaste and Tony really wanted to peel the towel back off him, but they had to get moving. "Go get dressed while I clean up, and let's get going."

Adam kissed him again, but quickly, and he hurried back into the main room. There was a spring in his step, like the bullshit with his family mattered less. Tony had a smile of his own as he splashed his face with water and then reached for his toothbrush.

They stopped to grab breakfast at a Dunkin Donuts. Adam chewed his lip for a second before ordering, then got an extra cup of coffee and cheese sandwich. "For the nazi," he said, as they got back into the car. "Positive reinforcement for being polite to you."

Tony snorted. "You really don't need to worry about that. I honestly don't care, as long as he's polite to _you_."

"Well, he won't be, so let's take what we can get," Adam said. "Though at this point, I'll be honest, it's actually kind of impressive how my father has managed to avoid speaking to me."

"Impressive is one word for it. There's another, but it's less polite," Tony said.

Adam shot him a smile. "I love you."

Tony helped carry the food in as they reached the hospital, but Adam's parents arrived at exactly the same moment. 

"Good morning," Adam said, smiling at them as if they would actually respond. "Great news about Marie. What a relief."

His mother actually did manage a wan smile. "It really is incredible."

His father just cast the two of them a tired look, as if he didn't even have the energy to be properly disgusted. Or maybe it was a good mood kind of blank look, like he was too happy his daughter was alive to be disgusted.

"Hey," Adam said, when they arrived at Marie's room. He held out the coffee cup and sandwich bag like a peace offering. "We stopped on the way in."

Derek blinked, then said, "Oh. Sure," and accepted it. _Sure_ was not exactly _thanks_ , but it also wasn't a slur, so again, Tony would take it. "I'll go find the doctor to fill you all in," he added, and ducked out of the room.

Adam looked over at his parents. "Fisher made bail."

His father's expression went grim, but he turned away rather than responding.

"Really?" Adam said, eyebrows raising. "We kind of need to discuss that as a family, seeing as how he pretty much tried to murder her, but okay, yeah, sure. Hey, Ma, tell _James_ over there that my husband, you know, the Navy SEAL who saved Marie's life yesterday? He volunteered to handle security for a few days."

"You don't have to make this so hard, Adam," she answered.

"I'm making this hard, are you shitting me? I fucking _showed up_ here, even though _he_ hasn't spoken to me in over fifteen years," he pointed at his father, then at Derek, "and even though he calls me a faggot every time he thinks you're not listening -- and I know you've heard it, by the way -- but sure, _I'm_ the one who's making this difficult."

"Well, you don't have to act like --"

"Like I'm gay?" Adam interrupted, and while his words were angry, his body language was hurt. And the ironic thing was that he wasn't camping it up, the way he did sometimes. Tony didn't know if he'd dialed the flamboyance down on purpose or if he was just too tired for it, but if his mother thought this was acting gay, she really had no idea. And sure enough, Adam continued, "I'm not fucking _acting like_ anything, this is who I am. Jesus Christ, maybe you shouldn't fucking talk to me, either."

"James," she protested, turning towards her husband. "Do something!"

To which Mr. Wyndham said -- to her, of course, not to Adam -- "What did you expect from that fucking queer? I told you I don't want him here."

"Yeah, well what the fuck are you going to do if I leave?" Adam snapped. "If I don't pay the medical bills? If Tony isn't here to keep fucking Fisher out? _Fuck you_ , because guess what, you prejudiced, homophobic, child abusing dickhead, I'm actually the one here to bail your worthless ass out. So _don't_ fucking talk to me, I don't want you to."

Tony reached out to put a hand on the small of his back. Just a small gesture, a reminder that Tony was there for him. The silence in the room was all but deafening, as both of Adam's parents stared at him.

"Was I not supposed to call it that?" Adam asked finally, some of the angry energy gone from his voice. "Because it was. It was child abuse. I got the message when I was, like, nine, that I was a freak and wrong and you all hated me. Trust me, I fucking figured it out. And congrats, it messed me up totally, because it's taken me a long, long time to realize not everyone is going to treat me like that."

Tony rubbed his thumb across Adam's back. Adam glanced at him, and caught his eye. Tony did his best to say _I love you_ silently, not sure if Adam wanted him to jump in and say it out loud. But Adam did move a little closer to him, slid an arm around Tony's back, tucked in close to his side. Tony did his best to stand up straight, to be something strong and solid for Adam lean on him. 

Derek came in, a doctor with him. It wasn't the redheaded woman from the previous day, it was some other guy, with thick glasses and thinning white hair. 

"What's going on with Marie?" Adam asked him.

"Uh, well." The doctor looked at a chart, and then explained basically what Tony expected. Yes, Marie was much better, though it was still hard for them to say how fully she'd recover. She had been able to speak, though barely, when she'd woken. She would probably be awake again in a few hours. And while she still needed to be in the ICU, in a day or two they'd probably be able to move her to long-term care -- which she would doubtlessly need, unless the family was going to send her to a recovery facility or get her a full time out-patient aide. 

The doctor didn't say it, but it was pretty clear that her insurance wouldn't cover more than the bare minimum on any of those options. When the doctor finally left the room, Adam sighed and leaned into Tony. "Looks like I should tell my agent to forget about artistic standards and start getting me auditions for shitty, big budget projects. There's gotta be a romcom where they need a gay best friend, right?"

Tony laughed. "Mainstream exposure might not be the worst thing for your career, you know."

"Yeah, you just don't want to have to support me when I'm totally washed up," Adam said, but he was smiling as he said it, giving Tony that look like they were somehow the only people in the world. 

So Tony leaned in and kissed him. Even knowing they weren't really alone, and in fact, that all of the people in the room were horrified and disgusted. It was just a quick peck, mouths closed, but with Adam looking into his eyes it was still intimate. 

"That's disgusting," Derek said.

Tony drew back and turned to just _look_ at him. Adam laughed, so he must have had one hell of an expression. 

"It really _is_ disgusting, how much I love him," Adam said, smirking just a tiny bit. "I mean, gay marriage, so threatening, right? The consequences could be horrifying."

And because Adam was really hot when he was defiant, Tony played along, adding, "I know I'm horrified. By how much I love you back."

Adam's family did not look amused. Mr. Wyndham's face and neck were red, his hands clenched into fists. He looked like he might pop a vein. Derek was pretty much the same, but a little more controlled, or at least, more wary. It was pretty clear he did not want to mix it up with Tony. 

But then there was Mrs. Wyndham, whose expression had gone cold behind the tear tracks and her red eyes. She was the one who spoke, very clearly: "You should leave."

Tony wasn't exactly surprised by that, but he glanced at Adam just to make sure. Adam didn't budge, so Tony said, "We're actually not going anywhere. I'll let you all fight out the money thing, but I saw that psychopath yesterday. Unless you're planning to hire full time security for Marie, I'm staying right here, and Adam is staying with me."

"No one asked you to do that," she hissed.

"Hey, babe, did you want me to handle your sister's safety?" Tony asked.

"Yes, please, sweetheart," Adam said. "Feel free to apply your years of incredible training and experience."

"Well, then." Tony nodded. "Looks like I've been asked."

"Adam," Mrs. Wyndham said, glowering at him. "If you're going to stay here, you can't carry on. We won't tolerate your temper tantrums. Not even for the sake of..." She glanced at Tony. "Security."

"Are you serious?" Adam asked, his voice climbing up an octave. "You actually hate me so much you'd rather risk Marie's life than let a security specialist with a decade of experience help -- because he happens to love me? No, fuck it, why am I even surprised?"

"Adam --" Derek started, but Adam wasn't done.

"Of course you would. You'll ignore the fact that Fisher actually could have killed her yesterday, if it means getting rid of me. I mean, fuck, I know you don't care if I die, you made that pretty clear when I was sixteen and none of you ever spent a second looking for me after you threw me out. No one did, except Marie. 

"So guess what? I don't give a fuck about any of you. I'm here, I'm queer, I'm not going fucking anywhere because that's my sister, _my sister_ , who needs help. Until she wakes up and tells me to get lost herself, she's the only family I have, and I'm here for her. Not any of you. And if you don't want to see me, well, the door is right fucking there."

Adam stared them down, his frame rigid as he waited in silence. 

His mother stood and walked out, his father at her heels. The door slammed behind them. And Derek stared.

"I mean it," Adam said. "I'm not leaving. You've made your opinion of me just as clear as they have, so feel free to fuck off with them."

Derek stared at him, then looked away. "What do you want from me, Adam? You're right. I'm not -- you're -- you were made wrong. Which wouldn't matter if you'd ever even fucking tried. But you --"

"Tried to what, be straight?" Tony interrupted, shaking his head. "Screw you. Get out."

"He could have. He _could_ have! You know Marie thinks so, too. When she wakes up, she'll tell you."

"Like. I. Said," Adam said. "When Marie tells me to go, I'll go. Until then, I'm here."

"So we can't be? We love her, too. We're actually in her life!"

"And so am I," Adam said. "So what's it gonna be, nazi? Do you love her more than you hate me?"

"Hard to say, because I really hate your fucking guts," Derek said. "But I'm not going anywhere. I don't want to leave her alone with you, you fucking disgusting freak."

"Because you think I'll what, get my gay cooties on her?"

"Because I want her to know the family does care about her. I want her to know that _you're_ the reason Mom and Dad aren't here."

Adam recoiled, just a tiny bit, his mask of disdain and anger breaking. But only for a heartbeat, before it was all back in place, as if nothing Derek said affected him at all. "Well, then. Let's hope she wakes up soon." He stalked over to one of the chairs and threw himself down in it.

Tony paused, though, and waited for Derek to look up at him. He smiled pleasantly. "Not for nothing, dude, but I know about fifteen different ways to kill a man with my bare hands. Which I only say because, you know, I'm here for security reasons. I just want you to know that I'm very highly qualified."

Adam raised his eyebrows. "Did you just threatened to kill him for me?"

"No." Tony sat down in the chair next to Adam's. "I don't joke about that kind of thing. If I were going to kill him, I just would." Derek looked unsettled as he sat down next to Marie, in Mrs. Wyndham's usual seat. "But I won't. Unless your safety is threatened, I'm not going to jail because of these people." He looked at Derek again and added, carefully, "If Adam's safety is threatened, though, all bets are off."

"Jesus Christ, I didn't threaten him," Derek snapped. "So knock it the fuck off."

Tony reached out to take Adam's hand, and Adam lifted their joined hands to his lips to kiss Tony's knuckles. Derek still looked sour and disgusted, but Adam let it go at that. And after a minute of quiet, Derek turned on the TV in Marie's room and let it run softly on some old sitcom rerun. 

Tony's phone buzzed in his pocket. He slid it out and checked. Jay had texted him that his flight was boarding; he should arrive on time.

 _Great_ , Tony sent back. _Advance warning: things with Adam's family have gone downhill. Lots of yelling, name calling, his parents stormed out and his brother thinks he was "made wrong." wtf._

 _That's rough_ , Jay sent back. _You can fill me in when I get there, but I'll plan to take over ASAP when I arrive so you can get some down time with him._

 _You're the best_ , Tony sent back.

"Interesting conversation?" Adam asked, eyebrows raised.

"Chief Lopez says hi." It was the short version, anyway. "He'll be in a little after noon."

"Who?" Derek asked.

Tony glanced up at him, and because no matter how mad he was, open hostility wasn't the answer, he said, "One of my teammates is coming to help out. We'll take shifts watching Marie."

"You really are serious about this," Derek said.

"Yes, I am."

Derek looked back at the TV. Tony glanced at Adam, who shrugged slightly. He settled into his seat and let the quiet sitcom laughtrack and the mechanical beeping of Marie's monitors wash over him. A nurse came in to check on her and left again. The sitcom dissolved to some other series. 

Adam fiddled on his phone. Tony shut his eyes and dropped into semi-nap mode. He wasn't truly asleep; any change in the noises in the room would have him instantly alert. Which was why his eyes flew open when Marie started gasping, the noises from her oxygen mask less steady. And sure enough, her arms were moving.

Derek and Adam both sprang up, hurrying to her side, while Tony rushed to the door to grab the nearest nurse. She came in and took Marie's mask off, told her, "Mrs. Ford, good morning! You were in an accident and you're in the hospital, you've been out for a couple of days, but you're stable now. Can you tell me your full name, honey?"

Marie wheezed, "Marie...Elizabeth....Wyndham...Ford." 

"Excellent, and can you give me your birthday?"

Marie did, slowly but surely, and answered a few more questions -- the year, who was president. The sort of things Tony had heard Jay Lopez ask plenty of times, when he thought someone might have a concussion or brain injury. Marie was speaking slowly and quietly, but she passed with flying colors.

Adam's eyes were teary as the nurse finally let him talk. "Hey, Marie. Hey, sweetheart."

"Adam." She stared at him, and then turned to look at Derek. "Derek?"

"Hey, yeah. I'm here too. Mom and Dad were...they just left, but we've all been here. Just...waiting for you to wake up."

"Adam...and you...and Dad?"

"No one said we were getting along," Adam said with a forced laugh. "But we're all here for you. You scared us pretty badly."

"While you're awake, Mrs. Ford, I'd like to take you for some testing," the nurse said, interrupting them. "If you'll all wait, she'll be back in an hour or so."

"Excuse me, ma'am, I know this is pretty unusual, but I actually need to go with Ms. Ford," Tony said, stepping forward. "There was an incident yesterday."

"I saw the report," the nurse said, and...checked him out. Well, that was going to be disappointing for her. "And you're the... bodyguard?"

"Something like that," Tony said. "And I'll need to talk to someone in the hospital's administration about this all -- preferably early this afternoon."

"You can arrange that downstairs. I don't know anything about it," the nurse said. "But after yesterday... I guess you can walk with us."

"Bodyguard?" Marie asked. "Incident? What...?"

Tony exchanged a look with Adam, who finally said, "Fisher came by yesterday and caused some trouble, but you don't need to worry about a thing. You remember, I told you my Tony is in the navy? He's a SEAL, actually, and, bless him, he volunteered to make sure Fisher doesn't bother you anymore."

Tony stepped forward, to where he was sure she could see him clearly. "Hello, ma'am, it's nice to meet you in person."

She stared at him for a long minute. He just waited, not sure what she'd say, whether it would be the kind of judgments Adam's parents made or something else entirely. But he didn't expect it when she wheezed, "Be...careful. Fisher is...dangerous."

"Yes, ma'am, I always am," Tony assured her. "So don't worry about me, and don't worry about Fisher. All you need to think about is getting better." He turned to the nurse and nodded. 

"Isn't he sweet? I told you I found a good one," Adam said, as the nurse began disconnecting equipment so the bed could be wheeled out. "Handsome, too."

"She doesn't want to hear that," Derek snapped. 

"It's an objectively true statement," Adam said.

" _Stop_." Marie couldn't get loud, but that didn't stop her from being emphatic. But she didn't say which one of them she was scolding, and they both fell quiet.

At least, until the nurse began wheeling the bed towards the door. "Do you want me here or with you?" Adam asked.

"With me, please," Tony said. 

Adam glanced at Derek. "You might as well call your parents, tell them she's awake. I'll even keep my mouth shut while they're in the room if they want to come see her."

Derek nodded. 

\--

Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham were indeed waiting when Marie was wheeled back in. Adam snapped his mouth shut, walked to the far corner of the room, crossed his arms, and didn't talk. Tony followed, standing where he could keep an eye on the door.

"Sweetheart, oh, honey," Mrs. Wyndham cooed, immediately taking Marie's hand as the machines were all plugged back in. "You scared us all so much, thank God you're awake."

"Hey, Ma...Daddy," she wheezed. 

Mrs. Wyndham started weeping. Tony thought, aware that it wasn't very kind, that he was really tired of her waterworks. Her only modes seemed to be sobbing and screaming, and while she had just nearly lost a child... well, she'd also literally thrown a child out once. He wondered if her love for Marie and Derek was as conditional as her love for Adam had been.

They talked, just a little. Marie was obviously wilting, and when the nurse came back to administer medications, she announced she was tired.

"I should get back to work, anyway, but I'll be back this evening," Mr. Wyndham said. "But first, there is something we need to address."

Adam went tense. And sure enough, even though Mrs. Wyndham shook her head imploringly, he barreled on.

"I don't want that -- that homo here, or his..." He shuddered, like he couldn't bring himself to say husband, or lover, or partner, or anything else that implied they were in a relationship. "I think he's using the Fisher thing to, to _blackmail_ us, to force us to tolerate their -- their -- their mockery of everything we believe!"

"I'd be offended, except I do actually mock everything you believe, whenever I get a chance," Adam said flatly. He walked to Marie's bedside. "Marie, it's fine if -- look, if you want me to go, I understand that. I just wanted to see you, and for you to know I'm... I care. But we aren't... the Fisher thing is really..." He took a breath. "I don't have to stay. But let Tony handle your security. Please." 

Tony wanted to object, because he wasn't going to stay if Adam wasn't, but... but what would he do instead? He really did believe Fisher posed a threat. He wasn't going to walk away from a violent crime waiting to happen. He'd have to make some other kind of arrangement, find some local security agency he could trust, not to mention apologize like crazy to Chief Lopez for wasting his time. Which he would do, of course, without question or hesitation, if Adam chose to leave.

But Marie said, "Stay. Please."

"Marie..." Mrs. Wyndham started.

Marie interrupted, though, and even through the bruises and stitches, her expression went defiant. It made her look a lot more like Adam. "Adam is my brother." She had to pause to catch her breath. "And I love him." Breath. "I love you _all_. I want ... I want you all here. But ... I love Adam."

Adam's breath caught and he actually turned away, obviously fighting tears. Because he hadn't expected it, Tony realized. Even though he and Marie had become closer, even though he loved her enough to be here for her, he hadn't expected her to love him back, let alone stand up for him. He'd actually thought she'd tell him to leave.

"We'll talk about this when you've had a chance to rest," Mrs. Wyndham declared, which cut off any immediate argument between family members -- but also meant she was not happy with Marie's decision. But she stood up, then leaned in to kiss Marie's cheek. "We'll be back this afternoon, sweetheart. Sleep well. I love you."

"Love you too," Marie said, and repeated it to her father, and then Derek, who hesitated. But apparently whatever issue he'd had earlier wasn't enough to keep him hanging around now, because he followed his parents out.

"We're staying," Adam said. "Me and Tony, we'll be lurking around here all day, but we can entertain ourselves. You get some sleep."

"Adam," she said softly. "Thank you for... for coming."

He reached out, gently brushed a finger down her cheek. He didn't say anything, though, and when he finally sat down in the seat by her bed, the tears had spilled over. He looked at Tony, caught his eye, and shrugged helplessly.

Tony understood, though, and mouthed _I love you_ at him, earning him an exhausted, teary smile. And Tony decided the whole painful trip was worth it for that, for Adam to hear that someone in his family truly loved and cared for him. Tony had been willing to protect Marie before, because it was the right thing to do, but now...

Now, she was family. And no one was going to mess with his family.

\--

Tony was hungry and he was sure Adam was starving when Lopez finally arrived. They hadn't left for lunch, since he didn't want to leave Marie alone or let Adam go out on his own. So they'd waited.

Marie was awake again when he arrived, which was just as well. Tony wanted to introduce them, so she wouldn't wake up confused about who the stranger in her room was, or why Adam had vanished after promising he'd stay. 

Lopez texted when he got off the plane, again when he got to the hospital, and then knocked on the door as he let himself in. Tony hopped up to meet him, with a handshake-lean-in-back-pat that made Adam laugh -- he referred to it as Tony trying to "hetero bro." He maybe had a point, because when he greeted Lopez, they just hugged.

"Marie, sweetheart," Adam said, stepping back, but tugging Lopez with him by the hand, "This is Jay Lopez -- he's basically Tony's boss --"

"Well, kind of," Lopez said, shaking his head a little.

Adam waved that off. "Well, he's one of Tony's teammates, anyway, and he was the one who was easiest to guilt into coming out to help for a few days. That is because he is actually the kindest and most honorable man I know -- sorry, Tony -- and believe me when I say you will be absolutely safe with him."

"Adam has a crush on him but won't admit it," Tony said, laughing a little. He knew that wasn't really true, but since Lopez had been the most immediately accepting of their relationship out of all of Tony's friends, he had a special place in both of their hearts. He was also utterly unbothered by Adam's tendency to flirt with absolutely anyone male, and the fact that he always took it in stride when he happened to be the male in question absolutely delighted Adam. 

"I will so admit it. He's adorable," Adam said. He flashed a grin at Lopez, who smiled back, completely at ease. "Jay, darling, come here."

Lopez dropped his duffle on one of the chairs and stepped forward. He reached down to take Marie's hand, even though she couldn't offer it, and he smiled at her.

"Jay, this is my sister, Marie," Adam said. "She's worth more than the entire rest of my family put together, and she's about to scold me for saying that, but it's absolutely true."

"Adam," Marie sighed.

"Told you so," Adam said, but he was smiling. "Tony and I need to go forage for food, and then Tony has to harass the hospital into letting you two stay after hours."

"It's not harassment, it's a legitimate safety request," Tony said. "I am hungry, though."

"I offered to ... share my Jello," Marie said, and Lopez laughed.

"Then I don't see what they're complaining about," he said, then gestured to the door. "Go on, text me if you need me."

"You good here?" Tony asked.

Lopez nodded. "Seriously, take some time if you need it. Sounds like you had a stressful morning."

Adam snorted. "That is one of way of putting it. I apologize in advance if the rest of my family comes in and you have to deal with their bullshit."

Lopez glanced at Tony, who nodded a little. He'd like to think that the Wyndhams would be polite and respectful to a stranger who flew halfway across the country to help them out, but, well... if that stranger was friends with Adam, they probably wouldn't be. He wished he could tell Lopez that it wasn't that bad, that Adam was just being overly dramatic, which had been known to happen. But no, it was increasingly clear that Adam's family really was that terrible.

"Call if you need anything," Tony said. "We'll drop by the hotel, too, and get you a room."

"I don't really need one, if you and I are taking turns here we can just hot bunk it," Lopez said.

"Uh." Tony felt his cheeks go warm. "You probably don't want to sleep in Adam's and my bed, Chief. Unless housekeeping has just been through."

Adam laughed, and Lopez's eyes widened in momentary surprise. Then he laughed, too, and said, "Okay, good point. I can get my own room later --"

"Absolutely not," Adam said, and Tony was glad they were on the same wavelength. "You are doing an enormous, incredible favor for us, and we're not going to ask you to pay for the privilege. We'll also be paying you back for that flight, even if Tony has to steal your wallet to leave the money in it."

Lopez shook his head, but all he said was, "We can discuss this later. But it's no big, guys. Really, what was I going to be doing in San Diego, anyway?"

"Enjoying the sun, unpacking everything in that lovely new house of yours, and not dealing with my family's incredible amounts of bullshit," Adam said.

"Like I said, we can discuss later. Go get lunch."

Tony recognized the dismissal. Lopez was still working on his serious authority voice, because he was usually just so darned pleasant, and until he'd passed the chief's exam he had rarely stepped up to take charge unless something medical was involved. There was a reason Zanella was still forever calling him bro and having to correct himself. But Lopez had improved a little at sounding authoritative, so Tony nudged Adam to the door.

But he did say over his shoulder, "I know your locker combination, Chief. Just saying."

Lopez laughed as he shut the door behind them.

\--

Jay had a moment of awkwardness as Tony and Adam left. He was more than happy to play bodyguard here, but usually that kind of assignment came with the guard-ee's agreement and awareness. Marie Ford was obviously in bad shape, and this whole situation was strange. Plus, if she'd been the victim of domestic violence, she probably wasn't thrilled with the idea of trusting a strange man while she was so vulnerable.

So he turned back to her slowly, hands raised. When in doubt, he might as well be straight forward. "Ma'am, would you prefer I sit near you where you can see me, or in the corner where I'll be out of your way?"

She stared at him for a long moment, then finally said, "Near me is... fine, I don't... don't like being... alone."

"Who does?" he returned, and sat in the chair nearest her bed. 

"Is that why...you came here?" she asked.

"No, but it's probably why Tony asked me to," Jay admitted, and wondered if he'd just been hit on. He was never able to tell if things like that were innocent questions or if she'd been trying to find out if he was single. "All my friends are married, most of them have kids now. Me, I just bought a house because it's too depressing to be pushing 40 and still living in the bachelor's quarters on base. But the good news is, that puts me in a pretty good position to come help out a friend who needs it."

"That's nice," she said, then, "I mean... that you came and... not that you..."

He laughed a little. "I know what you meant, don't worry."

They lapsed into quiet for a minute, until she said, "Do you know Adam very well?"

"Yeah, I think so," Jay said. "I know Tony better -- he's a lot like a little brother to me. But he and Adam have been together for, what, four or five years now? So I've gotten to know Adam. He's a really good guy."

A smile flickered across her bruised face. "Is he... is he happy?"

There was so much sorrow in her voice, behind that question. He wasn't entirely up to speed on the Wyndham family's interpersonal politics, but he knew things were difficult, and that Marie was the only one who was on anything remotely resembling good terms with Adam. 

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "I know he has rough patches, and it's really hard for him when Tony is deployed, but in the last few years, Adam has been truly joyful."

She smiled, and her eyes were watering. "Good. He deserves... it was so hard for him when..."

She was weeping, and trailed off into quiet. He waited to see if she was going to say anything else, but she didn't, and eventually, she fell asleep. 

He let his mind drift just a little. Tony and Adam obviously needed some sleep and some time to de-stress without worrying that something would happen to Marie, and he was happy to stay here and help, even if he didn't exactly want to think about what their methods of relaxation were.

Or how long it had been since he'd, uh, relaxed.

He sighed. The fact of the matter was, it had been a long time. Years, actually. Not because he couldn't have gone out and gotten laid, but because that wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want random hookups, he wanted a significant other. A serious girlfriend who'd eventually become his wife. He wanted kids -- a huge family, the kind some of his friends were well on their way to.

But it had never happened for him. He wasn't very good at meeting women, and when he did they inevitably fell for one his friends. Not that he had any single friends left. Back in the day, girls had always gone for Starrett or Muldoon. More recently, they swooned over Dan Gillman, and while Izzy Zanella wasn't exactly gorgeous the way Dan was, he was funny and charming and had never had a problem with women. 

But now they were all married. All of them. 

Even Tony, who'd always had inexplicably bad luck with women... well, looking back, wasn't that hilarious? Tony's bad luck had been self-inflicted, since he'd been closeted, and he'd gone from seeming to constantly strike out despite his dimples to seriously involved with Adam, and then, of course, married.

Jay was the last man standing, and it wasn't by choice.

It didn't help that his days in the navy were limited. He was already just about the oldest man on the team. Most of the guys he'd come in with had already left, either heading up the ranks in the navy or finding something in the private sector. Jay had managed to come back from his knee injury, but he was almost 40. Being a SEAL was for young men, and he was under no illusions. Sooner or later, but probably sooner, he'd slow down enough to become a liability, and he couldn't let that happen. He'd never put the team in a position where he might cost lives rather than save them. Which meant he'd need to take himself out of the equation before that could happen.

He sighed softly.

There was a knock on the door and then it opened. A doctor came in -- a red-headed woman, holding a file on a clipboard, stethoscope around her neck. She raised her eyebrows at him. "You're not the brother-in-law."

"No, ma'am," he said, standing to offer his hand. "I'm the brother-in-law's teammate. Jay Lopez."

She shook his hand. Her grip was nice and firm, and she gave him a long look down and up. "Nice to meet you, Jay Lopez. I'm Dr. Sasha Rosenberg, and I was hoping to speak with Marie, here, but she's... oh, she's waking up. Well, probably my fault."

She walked over to talk to Marie. Jay joined them, not because Marie's health was his business, but because she didn't like to be alone. 

"Well, Mrs. Ford, the news is all good," the doctor said. "You're getting stronger and stronger, just like you should be; tomorrow we'll be moving you to long-term care so you can begin PT for your leg. It'll probably be a three-month course, maybe six, depending on how it goes. But if you're able to do it, you should be up and walking at the end."

"Really?" Marie asked, staring.

"Really. It's not a sure thing, and it will be difficult and painful, at least sometimes. And in the worst case, well, you'll be alive, but using a wheelchair. That's survivable, too."

"My house has stairs," Marie said.

"Then you'd better work pretty hard at the PT," she said.

Marie nodded. She was sniffling a little, not that Jay could blame her. Her whole life was changing, whether she wanted it to or not; in the best case, in three months, she'd be able to resume most of it. More slowly, more painfully, but she'd probably be able to go back to teaching. But if the PT didn't go well, she might never manage that. She'd have to find a job she could do from home, or live on disability forever. And no matter what, the path to get there would be hard.

Jay took her hand. "You can do this," he said. "I managed to mess up my knee pretty badly last year. The PT was awful, but here I am, back up on my feet."

"But I'm not... not that strong," Marie said.

"You never really know how strong you are until it's do or die time," Jay said. "You'd be amazed at what you can do."

She shook her head quietly. "I'm not exactly a SEAL."

"Neither are most people, but lots of them go through this every day," Jay said. "And SEAL or no, we all do it one day at a time. So today, you relax here. Tomorrow you move to long-term and start working. You'll be fine."

"You don't know that," she said. 

"I have faith." He squeezed her hand. "But if you'd rather, I can give you the other pep talk. The one I'd give Adam."

"What?"

"I don't know how much you have in common, but I do know he doesn't respond to affirmations very well. At least, not unless they're coming from Tony. But the rest of us... well, the best way to get Adam to do something is to tell him he can't. If you say he'll never be able to do it, he gets mad. Defiant. And it doesn't matter what it is -- he'll get it done."

"That sounds like him," she agreed. 

"So which do you want?" Jay asked. "My unwavering faith in your strength, even if you don't have it yourself, or for me to tell you you'll never walk again so don't even bother trying?"

He glanced at the doctor, who was smiling her approval.

"I think..." Marie looked up at him. "Do you really think I can do it?"

"I'm sure you can," he said. 

Her eyes were still glistening, but she wasn't weeping anymore. She nodded. "Okay. Okay. Thanks, Dr. Rosenberg."

"Of course. I'm always happy to give good news. And you.... Officer? Lopez?" Her voice ticked up on the rank.

"Chief," he clarified. 

"Not a rank I'm familiar with. I'm not very military literate," she said. "But I guess no one can know everything, right? It's not like you went to med school."

She was obviously embarrassed about her lack of knowledge, but Jay couldn't quite resist. "Actually, I almost did -- got accepted to a few -- but I liked the navy too much to leave, so I had to settle for becoming a medic instead. It's not med school, but the training is pretty extensive."

She gave him that up-and-down look again, and he felt a flush rise in his cheeks. 

"Well, Chief Lopez, whatever that means," she said, "I'll be working until 11 tonight, so I thought I'd give you my number." She handed him a card. "In case any questions -- medical, security, or otherwise -- happen to come up."

Jay wasn't great with women, but he definitely recognized that this wasn't SOP. And that the look she was giving him wasn't one you'd give the family of a patient in the ICU. Which was... unexpected. But he still accepted the card and said, "Thanks, ma'am."

She nodded. "Mrs. Ford, obviously, you shouldn't hesitate to flag me down -- or a nurse or aide -- and ask any questions you have. And I'll drop in to check on you later."

Marie nodded. "Thank you, Dr. Rosenberg."

"Call me Doc Rose, everyone does," she said, nodded at them, and let herself out.

Jay sat down again.

"Wow," Marie said. "She certainly likes you. I bet you get that all the time, though."

"Not... not really," he said, setting the card aside. 

"Well, at least you'll get something out of this trip."

"What?" He shook his head. "I'm not going to... I mean, don't get me wrong. It's flattering, but if I'm only here for a few days, I wouldn't want to start something."

Marie looked skeptical. "I don't think that's what she wanted, either. She looked like she'd be happy to just have fun for a night or two."

Jay was definitely blushing. Yeah, he knew full well that was what the doctor had meant, why she'd mentioned so explicitly what time she was getting off work. But he shook his head. "That's not really my style."

"I thought that was every man's style."

"Nah. It's fine, for people who want it, but me... I don't know, I guess I just want more."

"So you don't want to have... fun... in the mean time?"

"It's _not_ fun," Jay said. "It's... it's the intimacy that makes a relationship fun, knowing someone well, really caring about them, and about what you're doing. You can't have that with a one-nighter."

"So you don't do one night stands," she repeated, sounding a little awed. "Even with a beautiful doctor?"

He shrugged. "Like I said, not my style."

"I guess it's nice to know at least one man thinks that way," she said.

Jay didn't say anything to that, but she was still holding his hand. Her grip was weak and her hand was cold, but he didn't let go.

\--

The disaster, when it came, was early evening, and Fisher wasn't even there. Tony had just texted that he and Adam were finishing dinner and would arrive shortly. The plan was for them to come stay until visiting hours ended, so Jay could hit the hotel and grab a combat nap and a meal of his own. Then he'd head back and take the overnight. It would be a long shift, but Tony didn't want to leave Adam alone to come relieve him, and given that Adam was apparently a ball of stress right now, waking him up and dragging him along to the hospital was probably not a great idea either. 

In other words, Adam needed some sleep, and Tony felt guilty that that meant he'd be getting to sleep, too, while Jay would be sitting here awake and bored. 

Jay didn't mind. He wanted to make this as easy for Adam and Tony as possible, and besides, he liked Marie. They hadn't been able to chat too much, since she drifted off a lot, but she seemed like a really sweet person. Mostly, she wanted to know about Adam and what his life was like. Like she was reassuring herself that what Jay had told her earlier, that Adam was happy, was really true. Luckily Jay had plenty of stories about Adam and his life. Some of them were things Tony had shared, but others were from Adam himself, like the time he'd had to film a scene where he was slapped -- but his scene partner kept messing up his lines and they had to do seventeen takes. Adam had walked away with a wicked bruise, but the story had been hilarious over drinks.

There was no knock on the door this time. It just crashed open, and three people stormed inside. Jay figured from a glance they were Adam's parents and his brother, and they did not look happy.

"Who the hell are you?" the father demanded, his body language screaming that he wanted a fight.

Jay didn't want to give him one. He stood up, careful to keep his tone pleasant and bland, and said, "Jay Lopez, sir, I'm helping out with security for a few days." He gestured at the now-empty seat and stepped out of the way.

But no one sat. Instead, Mrs. Wyndham demanded, "Marie Elizabeth, how _could_ you? Your own child!"

Marie's eyes went wide, and Jay went for his phone, sending _SOS_ to Tony, then, to clarify, _family_.

"Mama, I don't know what you're... what you..." Marie tried, but she was a crappy liar. 

"Fisher came by to talk to us," Mr. Wyndham said. He sounded less hysterical than his wife, but his anger was just as palpable, and, Jay was willing to guess, a lot more dangerous. 

And Fisher was the name of her abusive ex. This was definitely not good.

"Daddy, I don't understand," Marie said, her voice shaking. 

"You killed our grandchild," Mrs. Wyndham said. "You _killed_ him!"

"Ma'am, I think you need to calm down," Jay said, even though he knew it wouldn't do any good. 

"Fisher had a file from that -- that so-called clinic! He's not the one who should be in jail, you -- you --"

"What the hell is going on?

That was Adam, from the door, and he threw himself into the fray. He shoved past his family to Marie's bedside, then wheeled around to face them. Tony was with him, of course, but he didn't break through the line of family members. He hung back, caught Jay's eye. 

The argument that was about to go down was not going to be pretty. 

"That bitch," Mrs. Wyndham pointed at Marie, "killed her own, innocent baby. Fisher said --"

"Fisher?" Adam repeated, voice pitching up with incredulity. "Fisher told you this?"

"Yes, he --"

"And you _believed_ him? Jesus Christ, Ma, Fisher is a lunatic, he used to beat the shit out of her, she had to get a fucking restraining order. He tried to fucking kill her two days ago, but yeah, absolutely, believe everything he says. Are you fucking stupid?"

"Shut the fuck up," the brother said, shoving forward. "What do you know? What do you fucking know, Adam?"

"I know I trust Marie over that scumbag!" 

But his father had an actual file, and he threw it on the floor at Adam's feet. He didn't say a word -- Tony had said that, that he refused to speak to Adam directly. But Adam kicked the folder back towards him.

"You think because Fisher put it in a folder, it's true?" Adam shook his head. 

But they obviously did. They believed Marie had had an abortion, and in their eyes, that was worse than anything Fisher had done to her. Including, apparently, trying to kill her two days ago. Marie was crying softly and everyone else looked furious.

"This is insane," Adam said. "You're all actually fucking insane."

"Would you just, for once in your fucking life, shut the fuck up?" Derek yelled at him. 

"What do you know about my fucking life?" Adam yelled back. "Literally jack _fucking_ shit you mother _fucking_ asshole. So how about you three fuckheads get the fuck out of here until you come to your fucking senses?"

"Adam, enough!" his mother screamed. "It's time for you to go. You and your... all of you."

"I already said, we're not fucking leaving," Adam snapped at her. "Not while Fisher is a threat, and I'm sure as hell not leaving now so you can scream at Marie about shit she never even did!"

Jay had his eyes on Derek, whose fists were clenched, but apparently it was their father who'd finally had enough. He roared at Adam, "Get the fuck out of here, you little faggot, get the fuck out!"

He must have seen Tony take a step forward, because he turned to him. "Am I supposed to be intimidated by you and your friend? Give me a fucking break. A couple of fags and a spic."

And Adam lost his mind.

He leaped forward, before Jay or Tony could stop him, and slammed his fist into his father's face. The both fell backwards against the rolling surface that had been pushed up next to Marie's bed. Everything on it went clattering as they crashed into it. It gave and they fell, and it was hard to see what happened, but even as his father hit back, Adam pinned him down and freaking wailed on him.

Tony responded before Jay managed to, lunging forward to grab Adam and haul him off of his father. Adam was tense, but he let Tony pull him away, his hands now open and out in front of him. But Derek took that moment to rush at Adam. Tony shoved Adam away and intercepted him, taking a hit to his stomach that didn't even slow him down. He had Derek up against the wall, his arms wrenched behind him, in a heartbeat, while Jay stepped between Adam and his father, who was picking himself up off the floor.

"I want you to get out," Jay said to him, voice as deadly serious as he could make it. "All three of you are going to leave the hospital. Right. Now."

"I'm not --" Mr. Wyndham started, but he shut up when Jay grabbed him and shoved him unceremoniously towards the door. 

"Goddamnit. Sarah!" he snapped, stumbling out the door. Doc Rose, a nurse, a couple of aides, and a security guard were right outside in the hall. "Come on!"

Mrs. Wyndham was sobbing and shaking but followed him out, and as she left, Tony released Derek and nudged him towards the door.

"This isn't over," Derek hissed before leaving. Jay slammed the door behind them, and then turned to Adam.

Who was also shaking, probably from adrenaline, a bruise blossoming on his neck, his knuckles scraped and bloody. 

"Adam --" Tony started, but Adam ignored him, and instead went to Marie's side. 

"Hey, honey," he said, and actually sank to his knees next to her bed, clutching her hand. "I am so sorry. I am so, so, so sorry they -- that they were saying things like --"

"But it was true!" she sobbed. "You, you knew it was, you didn't have to... didn't have to..."

"I _did_ have to," Adam said. 

Jay frowned a little, glancing at Tony, who didn't seem particularly bothered by that. He hoped Adam hadn't felt that he needed to take a swing at his father on his behalf. It wasn't that having some ugly racism hurled at him didn't bother him, it just also didn't distract him. 

But that wasn't Marie's concern. She wailed, "You didn't have to defend me! I'm... what they said was... I _did_ it, I killed him, I, I shouldn't have -- I deserved it, what Fisher was -- I deserved..."

She devolved into sobbing, despite Adam making soothing noises, trying to shush her and reassure her. Jay could see just how little help that was going to be, so he opened the door again. And sure enough, a lot of medical staff was still there.

"Hi," he said. "Doc Rose?"

"Yes." She pushed past him, into the room. "What happened?"

"Things got a little ugly with the family," he said. "I imagine you saw them limp away... and I'm a little disappointed you didn't break the door down to get in here and make sure everything was okay."

"Well, there was a medic inside," she said.

Jay might have laughed, if the circumstances weren't so awful. "Marie needs something to help her calm down."

Doc Rose nodded. "Is anyone hurt?"

"Adam?" Tony asked. "Are you okay?"

Adam fell back, sitting on his butt right on the floor, looked up at the doctor and saw her -- and Tony and Jay -- scrutinizing him. "Yeah, you should see the other guy," he said, though in truth he didn't look that bad. 

"I did, in the hallway," she said. "And you'll be very, very lucky if he doesn't press charges, considering half the hospital staff saw just how bruised up he was."

Marie's sobbing went up an octave at that, but Adam just snorted. "He won't press charges. He'd have to admit a fag beat the crap out of him." He took a breath, bracing himself, and then pushed himself to his feet. "I'm fine. My hand hurts worse than anything else, and that's nothing some Tylenol won't fix."

"Never punched anyone before?" Doc Rose asked.

"What? Of course I have," Adam said. "It's been a few years, but that was not exactly my first time dancing with a homophobic douchebag. Hell, if you count the way Derek used to torture me, it's not even the first time I've been in a fist fight with my own family." He stepped back from the bed and gestured, so she could get to Marie.

"Ms. Ford, are you okay?" Doc Rose asked. "Were you hurt?"

"N-no," she stammered. "No one came near me. I -- I just..."

"Okay. Do you want something to help you calm down? You're due for your painkillers anyway."

"Y-y-yes," Marie said, still crying.

"Okay. I'll be right back." She glanced at the rest of them. "You three, behave. And don't go anywhere -- you'll need to fill out a report." She looked at Tony. "Again."

"Yes, ma'am," Tony said.

She swept out, leaving only the sounds of Marie's soft sobs. But Tony finally reached for Adam. 

"Are you really okay? I didn't push you too hard?" Tony asked, his arms wrapping around Adam, drawing him close. Adam went stiff, not hugging back, which was unusual.

"Yeah, I -- ow, shit, okay, it hurts a little, hug me more gently," Adam said, nudging Tony away.

"Should we head down the ER?" Tony asked. 

"No," Adam said. "It's just going to bruise. I'm fine."

Tony looked at Jay, who shrugged. He was willing to bet Adam hurt more than he wanted to let on, probably more from crashing into the table and floor than from actually being hit. But he said, "Adam, are you breathing okay? Any pain when you inhale or exhale?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just bruises. Nothing broke," Adam said, then to Tony, "I swear, Tony. I'm fine. I am _so_ not as brittle as you think."

Tony hugged him again, kissed his temple, but Adam pushed him away once again. Which Jay got, because Adam probably needed... well, he probably needed to be taken care of by someone who loved him, but he didn't want anyone to see that. Everyone dealt with being vulnerable in their own way. Adam's refusal to accept help or admit he was hurt was pretty familiar to Jay after all his years as a SEAL.

Of course, the fact that Tony was freaking after seeing Adam in a fight was understandable, too. Even though Adam had been pretty solidly cleaning his father's clock.

Doc Rose returned with a nurse and an aid, and a new IV bag. As they hooked Marie up, an administrator came in for them to give reports to. Jay had been getting more and more used to writing reports with his new rank, so it wasn't too horrible. Adam did most of the talking, anyway, and didn't bother trying to mask the fact that he'd thrown the first punch. Apparently, he really was banking on his father not pressing charges. Not that Jay would have let him lie, exactly, but his flat, "So then I hit him," could probably have been softened a bit.

"You really should be banned from the hospital," the admin said nervously. "We wouldn't usually allow... after that kind of physical violence... but..."

"But is there any way you can make an exception?" Doc Rose asked. "Given that this situation started with a threat to Mrs. Ford's life, which is still unresolved in any satisfactory way, it seems like that's the most important aspect to keep in mind."

Jay gave her a grateful look, but she was turning her full attention on the admin. Apparently she was pretty important, because he squirmed but then nodded. "Yes, all right. Given... given all that, I think... if Mr. Wyndham will agree not to be in the room with the rest of his, uh, family, if they come by..."

"Sure," Adam said quickly. "No problem."

Tony frowned at that, but didn't say anything. 

"Okay," the admin said. "Okay. Then... look, just... look. I think it's probably best of Mrs. Ford moves to another facility instead of doing her long-term care here. We won't force the matter tomorrow, but as soon as possible. Unless there is another incident, in which case we'll insist on transferring Mrs. Ford immediately."

"Sure," Adam said. "That sounds fine."

"Okay. Here." He handed them all a copy of his report to sign, and finally left, the doctors and aides with him. Which left them all alone in the room with Marie, who was asleep.

"Well, that was fun," Jay deadpanned.

Adam laughed mirthlessly. "That was a long fucking time coming, is what it was. But Jesus. I am so sorry, Jay. I am so sorry."

"About... what?" Jay asked, as if he didn't know full well.

"I'm so fucking sorry my father spoke to you like that. I'm sorry he can't just be grateful you came here to help. I'm sorry you had to come here at all," Adam said. He was sagging in place, and Jay knew he was, for a change, being entirely sincere.

"Okay," Jay said. "Your apology is accepted, but wasn't even remotely necessary. You aren't responsible for anyone else's behavior."

"Yeah, but I'm responsible for you being here. I mean, Tony kind of had to come, he married into this bullshit, but you just came along for fun." He did that flat, dead laugh again. "We give the Gillmans a run for their money on the poor white trash front. No wonder Eden and I get along so well."

"Adam," Jay said firmly. "I am here because I want to help, and there's not a thing anyone in your horrible not-family could say that would make me regret coming. Not. One. Word. They could say. Get it?"

"Yeah," Adam said.

"Good." He glanced at Tony, then back at Adam. "And it's not like they haven't thrown some pretty awful language your way."

Adam shrugged. And Jay knew for sure Adam wouldn't have exploded like that if his family had contained their hatred to just him. But when they'd dragged Tony and Jay into it...

Adam certainly hadn't needed to do that on Jay's behalf, and he was sure Tony would say the same. But he still caught Adam's eye and nodded a little, acknowledging that Adam had his back, unquestionably. All the more reason why he'd always have Adam's.

"Okay," Jay said. "I think you two should probably just head out now, take the night. Get some ice on those bruises."

"We were going to relieve you," Tony reminded him. "You haven't had dinner yet."

"So go get me dinner," Jay said. "And then take the night."

"Chief -- "

"Chickie, you know as well as I do that when the adrenaline is out of Adam's system, he's going to crash hard, and those bruises are going to hurt. I'm fine here -- I was the one least involved in the fray -- and if you get me dinner, I can handle the whole night."

Tony still fought him, though, obviously feeling just as bad as Adam did about the whole situation. "If you take Adam back to the hotel and make sure he's locked inside the room safely --"

"Vlachic. Enough," Jay said. "I've got this. I assume you're going to want to spend some time tomorrow, right?" At Adam's nod, he continued, "Good. You'll come in after breakfast, spend a few hours while I crash, and we'll work it out from there. Got it?"

"Yes, sir. Chief," Tony said, and he sounded almost relieved by how Jay had pulled rank on him. "We'll be back in 20."

\--

Tony pulled them into the farthest corner of the mall parking lot. There was a food court inside where they'd be able to get something for Lopez that was at least a few steps up from the hospital cafeteria. But first things first. 

He unbuckled his seatbelt and Adam did the same, but before Adam could reach for the door handle, he grabbed Adam's wrist and gave him his best serious face.

"If this is the part where you lecture me, skip it," Adam said. "I'm not sorry I hit him, I'd do it again in a fucking heart beat."

"Yeah," Tony said, and couldn't stop himself from smirking. He knew why Adam expected the lecture, because it's what he'd been telling himself to say for the whole drive. But the devil inside him wouldn't let him, not when he didn't really mean it. 

The truth was, he was glad Adam had hit the fucker. He'd wanted to do it himself, but if he'd hit someone, he'd have done a hell of a lot more damage, and that wasn't excusable. But while Adam was much, much tougher than people tended to guess, he wasn't going to do the damage a SEAL would. 

And the other truth? That was the one he really shouldn't admit to. But watching Adam fight like that had been, well...

Really fucking hot.

Adam didn't get it at first, when Tony just reached across him to the controls on his seat, pushing it back as far as it would go. But he did get it when Tony made his way between the seats and into the footwell, folding into the space awkwardly. 

"Oh, shit, for real?" Adam breathed, as Tony tugged the zipper of his fly down.

"Don't do it again," Tony said.

With as little space as there was, he didn't bother trying to get Adam's pants down or off. It was awkward just getting Adam's dick out through the fly of both his boxer-briefs and his jeans, but Adam was getting hard in his hand.

"You know," Adam panted, as Tony dipped his head. "I'm getting... _unf_...kind of a mixed message here. You tell me don't but... holy shit, babe. _Nnnnnn_ , holy, _mmmmm_."

God, it was gratifying when Adam got so worked up he couldn't talk. And even more gratifying when Adam's fingers gripped Tony's scalp, messing up his hair, and when Adam gasped, jerking in his seat, and came down Tony's throat. 

Adam went completely boneless on the seat. Tony couldn't move very far at all, since he barely fit in the space where he'd folded himself to begin with. "Babe, is there anyone near enough to see us?"

Adam leaned up, looked out the window. "No, we're good."

"Good." Tony reached for the handle and opened the door, slid out. Which gave Adam enough room to tuck himself back into his pants. "Come on, let's go pick up Jay's dinner."

"Jesus." Adam laughed. "You told Jay 20 minutes, we're gonna be a bit late."

Tony shrugged. "I think he'll understand."

"Yeah, are you gonna explain?"

"Not in a lot of detail, no." Tony looked over at Adam and couldn't help but grin. "How messed up is my hair?"

"Uh, enough that a smart guy like Jay is not going to need details to figure out why we took so long," Adam said. "But I doubt anyone in the mall will notice, since I look like I was just in a fist fight, which, by the way, I was. But we have to talk about this."

"About you fighting?"

"About you reacting to me fighting, because darling, if violence turns you on, I am now worried about what happens when you're deployed."

Tony laughed. "It doesn't really happen when it's anyone but you. I'll tell you something embarrassing, though."

"Please do."

"I may have rewatched a few fight scenes from your movies as often as the sex scenes." Tony felt his cheeks go pink, but didn't care that much. He knew Adam was aching, was exhausted, was still so stressed he might snap. Giving him a little shot of self esteem was the least Tony could do. "You'd make a great action hero. You're so hot."

"Sure," Adam said, and his laughter finally sounded rich and real, not like the half-dead noises from when they'd been in the hospital room. "Says the actual, real life action hero."

"Yeah, but your fights have such great lighting and choreography," Tony said, as they walked into the mall. 

"That most recent one didn't, and I wouldn't have minded a stunt double for that fall. And it would have been nice if someone had called cut, too," Adam said, rubbing at the bruise on his neck.

"Hey, I tried," Tony said. "But you were pretty determined to beat the shit out of him."

"Which I should not do again, apparently, despite the fact that it got me a quickie in the rental car," Adam said.

"Right."

Adam laughed again. "Definitely a mixed message, babe."

\--

Jay felt a little creepy sitting in the dark, but he certainly didn't want to keep Marie up. It just kept startling aides who came in to check on her overnight. They'd all been warned he was there, of course, but they were still always surprised to find a strange man sitting in the dark in her room.

Still, he preferred the quiet to Marie's soft crying. She was obviously trying to keep it quiet, either struggling not to completely give in and sob, or just trying to keep him from hearing. He hesitated. The polite thing to do would be to pretend he didn't hear it, but he wasn't sure that was what would help her the most in the long run.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" he finally asked gently. "Do you need a nurse?"

"What? Oh, no, I... I didn't mean to wake you up..."

"It's kind of hard to bodyguard when you're asleep," he pointed out. "I was awake. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I..." She wiped at her face. "I'm fine."

He reached for a box of tissues and handed a couple to her wordlessly.

"Thanks," she said. "Oh, Lord, I can't even imagine what you must think of me. I can't... can't imagine."

"What I think of you?" He raised his eyebrows, though she probably couldn't see that in the dim light. 

"After today's... scene. My parents..."

"You aren't any more responsible for them than Adam is," Jay said. He didn't point out that a lot of the scene that evening had been Adam's fault, too. That seemed overly harsh -- Adam had been defending her, and Tony, and, well, him. But Jay had found violence rarely diffused a bad situation. Which was probably ironic, given his career, but in his daily life he avoided it whenever possible.

"But I..." She gulped in a few breaths. "You heard ev-- ev-- everything." She was still crying. "You know what I did, I... I..."

"You had an abortion." He put it in plain language. It was just a medical procedure, and a very common one. He understood why so many people were uncomfortable with it -- he had been, too, when he was much younger, but it was nothing that troubled him now. He'd seen too many desperate people to be afraid of a procedure that was, all too often, a desperate solution for those who needed it.

"I... I had to," she said, and she was barely whispering. "I didn't want... I mean, I did want... oh, God. I wanted him _so much_ , but..."

"Shh, hey," Jay murmured. He reached for the water cup the aide had left for her. "Here, take a drink, take a breath. You're okay."

She accepted the drink, and then another tissue. Jay waited to see if she'd want to keep talking; if she didn't, he certainly wouldn't prompt her to. But she did.

"I hated... I hate myself for... but I had to. You don't understand, you can't," she said.

"You don't have to tell me," Jay answered. "If you did it, well, I believe you had a reason, and it's not my business. You don't need to justify anything to me. But if you want to talk, I'm happy to listen."

She stared at him, squinting into the darkness. So he reached out for her hand. 

"I was trying to leave Fisher," she said softly. "I already _had_ left, once, but he convinced me to come back because I... I loved him. But he didn't change. This time I knew I had to leave for real, and he was fighting the divorce, tying it up, trying to... he still had access to my bank account, my credit card records, everything, and I... the first time I left, he... I was so terrified. For so many years, I just wanted... I loved him. I really did."

Jay squeezed her hand. 

"But when I... I found out I was pregnant, I knew, I just... I'd never be able to really, really leave, not if I had his child. And he -- I wouldn't -- I couldn't let him hurt a child. He _would_ have."

"That must have been terrifying," Jay said, and meant it. She must have been so scared, not just for herself, but also for the child she'd wanted so badly. "You must have felt so alone."

"Yeah," she said, choked. "But I wasn't, I was... I couldn't take the money out of the bank, Fisher would have seen, and if he'd realized... It sounds so paranoid, but..."

"Not at all," Jay said. Fisher had already proved he was violent, and Jay had no doubt something terrible would have happened if he'd known at the time. She'd been smart to think of that.

"I called Adam," she said. "I didn't know what else to do. And I'd been so terrible to him. When we were kids, I -- it was my fault. I'm the one who outed him. If I hadn't, he wouldn't have... wouldn't have gone through everything. He was _homeless_!"

"Your parents were the ones who did that to him, " Jay said. "And like I said already, what they do really isn't your fault, or your responsibility." Not to mention that, while he hadn't been there and couldn't say for sure, he strongly suspected that everyone had already known Adam was gay. She may have been the first one who admitted it out loud, but he couldn't imagine an Adam who didn't read as gay to everyone who met him.

"He was my brother," she said. "The worst part is, I -- I knew they were wrong. Back then. I _knew_. But I was so worried about him being... being gay, I thought that was wrong, too... I wasn't brave enough to accept him or stand up for him."

"If he was only sixteen, how young were you?" Jay asked.

"Seventeen," she said. 

"Seventeen, still in high school, but you were supposed to somehow make peace for your whole family?" Jay asked. 

"I was almost eighteen."

"Oh, well, that's different," Jay said, hoping the humor in his voice would soften the sarcasm. 

"I should have done something."

"You looked for him," Jay said. He knew that much. Adam didn't talk about his years on the street very often, but he'd mentioned that. Marie looked for him, but couldn't find him -- he'd hitchhiked from this forsaken town in Iowa to New York. But at least she'd tried to find him, years later still trying enough that she'd hired a private investigator to try to track him down. 

From what Jay had been able to piece together, that had happened only a few months after Adam had hooked up with Jules, moving to DC to be with him. Jules had been trying to convince Adam to contact his family anyway, and had done some FBI voodoo that had picked up the PI's attempts to track Adam down. Jules had looked into it, found out Marie wanted to make contact, and harangued Adam into calling her.

"He came all the way to Chicago to be with me," Marie said. "That's where I... I told my family I was getting away from everything for a weekend, it was far enough away that they wouldn't find out. Adam flew out to meet me, he paid for... for everything, he held my hand, he was... I hadn't even seen him in person, we'd barely talked, but he still came."

Jay had always liked Adam, but his respect for the man climbed up another notch. 

"My parents..." She started crying again. "They'll never speak to me again. Not ever. Fisher will _kill_ me --"

"No, ma'am," Jay interrupted. "I can say that for sure. Fisher will never lay a hand on you again."

She shook her head. "And now you've been dragged into this, and Adam and Tony, too. It's all my fault. You shouldn't... I don't deserve... I've done so many terrible things. I'm so... I'm so awful, I can't..."

"I don't think you've done anything terrible," Jay said. It was the simplest truth he could articulate. "I think... You said you can't imagine what I think of you, but you're the only one here who thinks you're awful."

"You don't understand," she said.

"Actually, I do," Jay said. "It's just that I'm hearing what you're describing without all the expectations you have from growing up with your family. I don't think it's terrible for you to have done everything you needed to, to get free of someone who was hurting you. I think abortion is... sad, all the more so when you wish you could have the baby. But it isn't terrible. It certainly doesn't make you terrible."

"But what about... about what I did to Adam?"

"Have you talked to him about it?" Jay asked. "I imagine he has a different perspective than you do."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"What you told me," Jay said. "The truth. That you wish you'd done things differently but didn't know how. Then listen to what he says -- really listen."

"What if he hates me?"

"He doesn't," Jay said. He was already sure of that. The fact that Adam had come here at all was proof of that. "And what he says, what he thinks... wouldn't you rather know the truth? And not just assume it's something awful?"

"Yeah, I just... I just... I wish everything was different. That's so stupid, I know, but..."

"It's okay to wish, or to pray, or... fantasize, I think," Jay said. "But at the end of the day, this is your life, now. You're here, and you can't look back forever -- you need to look forward, decide what you want your life to become. Who you want in it. What you want to do."

She was silent for a long time after that, long enough that Jay thought she'd fallen back asleep. Until she whispered, "I don't think my parents will want to be in my life. No matter what I want."

His heart broke a little bit, because he suspected she was right. He wanted to be able to tell her otherwise, that her parents would never disown her, but he couldn't. He wanted to tell her she'd be fine, happier, better off, but he couldn't know that either, and it hardly seemed compassionate to tell her that her fears weren't so bad.

So instead he said, "There are people out there who will love you, no matter what you do."

"No," she said softly. "I don't think there are." 

She pulled her hand away and rolled over on the bed, away from him. He locked down a sigh. He couldn't blame her for thinking that, after today; he couldn't blame her for hating herself and what she'd done. But it wasn't fair, either. He barely knew her, but it was so clear that, like Adam, she'd come from an emotionally abusive family, and like all survivors, she deserved better.

Jay didn't get angry very often, at least, not when he wasn't facing threats to national security. He was a religious man himself; people using god to justify hatred was never okay with him. The Wyndhams obviously did that. It was how they'd justified their terrible treatment of Adam, and now their rage at Marie. It had become a tool of their emotional abuse. 

Jay's temper simmered, and he was glad that Tony had called him to come help out. He was smart enough to know that he couldn't truly fix any of this, but he hoped that somehow, beyond just keeping her safe, that he'd be able to help. 

\--

Jay got a text a few minutes before eight. Marie stirred next to him, just slightly awake, as he read it. A note from Tony: _heading out now, bringing you coffee_. He'd even included a little coffee cup emoji. Jay smiled.

_Thanks. All's calm here._

Marie yawned. "What's going on? What time is it?"

"Almost eight. Tony and Adam will be here soon."

"Nothing bad happened while I was asleep? Since I guess you didn't sleep at all..."

"I didn't," he agreed. "And no, nothing happened. No sign of Fisher."

"Thank God." She rubbed her eyes. "This is all so crazy. My family and Fisher... I can't believe any of this is real. I wish... I wish I'd never met him. I knew he was... I had no idea he'd be capable of anything like this. I never thought..."

She trailed off. Jay glanced over at her.

"It's stupid," she said. "Obviously I had no idea. It's not like I'd have married him if... but... God, I was stupid. I should have known. I should have."

"How?" Jay asked, because he was pretty sure she was beating herself up, the same way she had when she'd talked about Adam. 

"When we were dating, I thought he was so... sexy," she said. "He was always a bad boy, and guys like that... they don't notice girls like me. I was so happy when he started flirting with me. I knew he was... he was pretty messed up. He got so angry sometimes, even back then, but he always told me I helped. You know? I made him feel better, more in control, and I was so sure he'd never hurt me." 

Her voice went bitter, and Jay could imagine it all too clearly. She held herself responsible for everything -- including her ex-husband's actions. She blamed herself for believing him; she blamed herself for what he'd done to her. 

Before he could voice that thought, remind her she hadn't done anything wrong, she continued. "But then he did, and he was so sorry. And I knew... I knew I should leave, but I didn't, because he _needed_ me. And he loved me. And I thought I could help him, I really did."

Her voice wavered by the end of it, and he reached for a tissue preemptively. This time, he said it out loud: "It wasn't your fault."

"I know," she said, without any conviction. "I was just... just too stupid to leave."

"But you did leave," he reminded her. "It isn't stupid to want to help -- even when you can't -- and you _did_ leave, even though that had to be... I can't imagine how hard."

"But I should have..." She shot him a look, and then actually laughed miseably. "The first time I tried to leave, he told me... he reminded me, you know, he was my first boyfriend. It's not like there were other guys out there begging for a shot with me. _That_ was a stupid reason to stay."

Jay shook his head. "If that was why you stayed, then... he made you feel like that. He warped the truth, warped you into believing it. That's not stupid. That's what abusers do." 

"He wasn't exactly wrong," she mumbled.

"Yes, he was," Jay said. His cheeks definitely went warm, and he knew it wasn't the point, but he said it anyway. "You said guys don't notice you, but I bet they do."

Now _she_ turned red, and crap, he hadn't meant to embarrass her. 

Awkwardly, trying to make it a joke without making her feel worse, he continued, "With your hair like that, you know, kind of shaved? You look like you're into punk rock. I bet you'll have tons of sexy bad boys following you around after this."

She ran a hand over her hair self-consciously, which was not what he'd wanted either, but all she said was, "I think maybe I'm not interested in bad boys anymore."

\--

Tony and Adam reached the hospital only minutes after visiting hours started. Lopez was, of course, waiting for them. Adam held out a cup of coffee and the car keys -- the coffee so he wouldn't have to spend precious minutes finding his own, and the keys because, while sharing a hotel room wasn't a great idea, they really only needed one car between the three of them.

"Thanks," he yawned.

Marie was awake, too. "Hey, honey," Adam greeted her. "Tony and I are here, we're going to stick around for awhile so Jay can go get some sleep."

"And I'll do tonight's overnight," Tony added.

"We'll see," Lopez said.

Yeah, they would. Tony still didn't love the idea of leaving Adam alone, but he'd be safe enough locked in a hotel room, especially with Lopez just down the hall. If Adam stayed inside -- which Tony would convince him to do -- then it would be fine.

"Any trouble?" Tony asked, instead of fighting about it. They had all day to convince Lopez.

"Nope." Lopez stood and stretched, muscles flexing under his plain t-shirt. Adam let out a wolf whistle.

"You know, one of these days one of the guys you hit on is going to be very disappointed to learn you're just joking," Lopez said mildly. "We all know you only have eyes for Tony, but someone out there might not."

"I wasn't hitting on you, Jay. Trust me, when I hit on you, you'll know it." Adam grinned. "That was merely me appreciating an extremely well-sculpted male form. If Marie could whistle right now, she would have, too."

"I would not," Marie said, and her face went bright red.

Interestingly, so did Lopez's. Tony glanced at Adam, who was looking back at him. He hadn't missed that, either.

"Well, _I_ would, but it would probably be weird," Tony said. He was joking, of course -- he made it a point to never comment on any of his friends' bodies, to never even look. He couldn't afford for there to be any awkwardness. But right now, someone needed to take the attention off of how embarrassed Marie looked.

"Oh, please, like you ever look at any man but Adam," Jay laughed. He turned to Marie. "Seriously, watch them this morning. Watch how they look at each other." He smiled a little wistfully. "No one's ever looked at me like that."

"Aww, Jay," Adam said, and pulled Jay into a genuine hug. "Trust me, the future Mrs. Lopez is definitely out there and she will always stare at you adoringly. The only reason you haven't met her yet is that you tend to be too busy saving lives to meet women."

"Yeah, that's probably it," Lopez said indulgently. He pried himself out of Adam's arms and reached for his duffle bag. "I'll be back at one. Call if you need me."

"Will do," Tony agreed. He and Lopez exchanged nods, and Lopez let himself out to head back to the hotel.

Adam sat next to Marie's bed. "Well, you and Jay certainly seem to be getting along."

She was already blushing, and now she ducked her head like that would hide it. "He's very nice. He's easy to talk to."

"Did you stay up late chatting?"

"No. Not -- just a little. He's..." She shrugged. "I don't understand why there _isn't_ a Mrs. Lopez. I can't imagine how he could possibly still be single."

Adam caught Tony's eye. Yeah, Marie was definitely smitten. And though Lopez hadn't exactly said anything, his own pinkened cheeks and the quick smiles he'd flashed at her spoke volumes. Lopez probably _wouldn't_ say anything, but he was smitten, too.

"Well, darling, what do you think?" Adam asked. "You know him better than I do. Is he hiding some kind of massive issues under that adorable smile? Are there skeletons hidden in his closet?"

"Nope," Tony said. "I think his only issue is that he's shy, and maybe a little old fashioned. Bad at meeting women, even worse at talking to them. Well, no." He corrected himself. "Worse at _flirting_ with them. He's good at talking. But he's not good at making it clear he's interested in more than talking, and he is a disaster at actually trying to ask a woman on a date."

"That's adorable," Adam said. 

"And it's a shame," Tony said. "Because he really is a great guy. He was one of the very first people on the team I came out to, and he stood up for me when others... well, there was this one guy who was really uncomfortable. I don't know if he really would have brought DADT down on me, but Chief Lopez talked him down."

"Danny?" Adam asked, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah. He's over it now," Tony said to Marie. "Danny, our friend. We're actually really close. His little brother..." He glanced over at Adam, not sure if this was a safe topic.

But Adam ran with it. "Danny's little brother is gay, and Dan completely changed his tune when he realized. And oh, let me show you a picture -- Danny and his wife, Jenni, she's amazing, and they have a baby. He is the cutest thing. He's got his dad's good looks and, let's hope, his mother's good sense."

Tony laughed. Adam had his phone out and was scrolling through photos. He handed it to Marie, and she sighed a little.

"And, oh, guess what? Guess who delivered that little angel?" Adam continued.

Marie looked up at him. "No way."

"Way. Jay Lopez himself, everyone's favorite medic."

Marie smiled at the photos, but it wasn't exactly a happy expression. "Adam, I need to talk to you about something." She handed the phone back to him.

"Okay." He set it aside. "What's up?"

Tony tried to make himself invisible, stepping back towards the corner. Adam glanced at him and he shrugged. Worst came to worst, he'd step outside and block the door. That would fulfill the need to keep Marie safe and give her some privacy. But she didn't ask him to. In fact, she was quiet for a long time.

Finally, she said, "When we were... you were..." She took a deep breath. "When Mom and Dad disowned you. Because of what I found in your room."

"The gay porn," Adam said, his voice a little tight. "What about it?"

"Adam, I was... I'm so sorry." She stared at him, eyes wide behind the bruises. "I was... everything I believed back then, I was so scared for you, I didn't know how to help you."

"Help me... be straight?"

"Yeah." She was sniffling, but she forced herself onwards. It was clearly an act of will. "Now I know that's not... But I didn't know what they would do. I never thought they'd kick you out. I was -- I was so stunned, and such a coward. Because even back then, I knew it was wrong. I knew I should ... should have talked them out of it, should have done something, but I was too scared. And I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. And I just needed to... needed to say that. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Oh, honey." Adam reached for her hands, smiling a little. But his smile was just as sad as hers. "I already have. I was... things were bad for a long time, and I hated you for a long time. I won't lie, okay? But it wasn't just you, it was Mom and Dad and Derek, too. All of you. But then... things didn't stay bad forever. And you were trying to find me. And I... I missed you."

"I missed you too," she said softly. 

"It's taken a long time," Adam said. "And therapy. Loads of therapy. I used to think it was bullshit, but Tony made me go."

Marie glanced at him. Tony shrugged. He was a big advocate for mental health. Adam had needed some help he hadn't been qualified to give, so yes, he'd encouraged it. 

"And it made me realize," Adam continued, "that yeah, I was disowned, but I also _escaped_. Those people are nasty, Marie. Mom and Dad aren't _nice_. They're manipulative and horrible, and emotionally abusive. And not just to me. You grew up there, too, and you're kind of messed up from it, just like I am."

She wiped at her cheek. "Yeah, I might be."

"So I forgive you." Adam shrugged. "So don't even worry about it."

"Thank you," she whispered. "For... for everything. For being here, and in Chicago, and..."

"Hey, you don't need to thank me, honey. I'm your brother. I will always, always be here for you." He shifted forward, onto her bed, pulling her into a hug. "Okay?"

She was crying onto his shoulder now, as he stroked her tangled hair gently. Tony looked away, wishing he had given them some privacy after all. It was a bittersweet moment, one that had been a long time coming. There was so much sorrow in the room, but there was hope, too. They'd been rebuilding their relationship for years, but Tony was sure this was the first time they'd talked about all of this, and they'd obviously needed to.

Tony couldn't imagine what it was like for the two of them. His family was large and loud. He was the youngest of five siblings; he had a few aunts and uncles and tons of cousins. They didn't always get along, Thanksgiving could get pretty tense when people had too much to drink and started talking politics. But at the end of the day, they all loved and supported each other. They'd found it way weirder that Tony had wanted to enlist than that he was gay. When he'd come out, they'd hugged him and assured him they loved him, no matter what. 

What would life be like without that? If he didn't have a ton of people who loved him, encouraged him, had his back no matter what. If he'd been told, over and over again, that he wasn't good enough.

It would be a nightmare. One that had been all too real for Adam and Marie both. Adam's escape, as he'd put it, had meant several long years of being homeless before he got back up on his feet, and he was still dealing with that trauma. Marie's had been marriage, but to someone who treated her even worse, upped the ante from emotional to physical abuse.

And after so many years, these two had found each other again, found support and family. Marie was on the brink of losing everyone else she knew -- Tony hoped her parents would come around, but he wasn't sure they would. But if they didn't, if she found herself alone the way Adam had been...

Well, she wouldn't be. Because she had Adam. And Tony, too. San Diego was a hell of a lot nicer than Bumfuck, Iowa, or whatever this town was called, and he'd be more than happy to have Marie come stay with them.

\--

The Wyndhams didn't show up that morning. Tony wasn't shocked, but it was a little disheartening. Though he did have a moment of hope for Marie's sake when someone knocked on the door at 11:30 -- but it was Lopez, early.

"Did you miss a time zone change?" Tony asked him.

"Nope," Lopez said.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" Marie asked.

"A few hours, which is more than enough."

"See, fun thing about SEALs, they like to prove how tough they are," Adam said. "By doing ridiculous things like refusing to sleep, or -- I swear to god -- refusing to wear underwear. Any given day, there's at least a fifty percent chance these two are going commando."

"Well, I'm not, so odds are..." Tony said, and looked at Lopez.

Who was bright red and didn't say anything -- which meant he didn't deny anything, either.

Adam laughed. "There you have it. I don't see how it proves much, but then again, I don't jump out of airplanes for fun."

"It isn't for fun, it's for practice," Lopez said, and then shook his head a little. "Anyway, yes, I'm early. I was hoping I could borrow Adam for awhile."

Tony bit down a smirk, seeing it coming even as it happened. Adam threw his arms around Lopez's neck, cuddling up close, grinding on him. He fluttered his eyelashes and cooed into Lopez's ear, "Any time, for absolutely anything you want, baby."

Lopez... Lopez looked a little like he had a headache. "I take it _that_ was you hitting on me?"

"I told you you'd be able to tell the difference." Adam detached himself, grinning.

"What would you have done if I'd said yes?" Lopez asked, glancing back and forth from Adam to Tony.

"Asked Tony's permission, of course. It's not cheating if he says it's okay."

Lopez looked at him. Tony snorted. "Don't worry, I'd have said no. You're not on our fantasy list."

"Oh, thank God." But Lopez was laughing a little.

"Is Adam always like this?" Marie asked.

"Yep," Tony said. He grabbed Adam's hand, tugged him in to kiss him. "It's part of his charm."

"See," Lopez said, "like that. They look at each other like that."

And okay, maybe Tony was smiling at Adam like Adam was the only person in the world, and maybe Adam was looking up at him through thick eyelashes, smiling back -- his genuine, quiet smile, not the flashy grin he gave everyone else. Tony kissed Adam again, one of those quick _I love you_ pecks.

"Wow," Marie said. "Yeah."

Adam cleared his throat and stepped away, his cheeks red. Open, honest affection always embarrassed him more than blatant sexuality. "So, did you need me for something, Chief?"

"Well, not exactly, but I thought that since Marie is moving to long-term today, it might be nice if someone brought her some clothes. And she might not appreciate having a strange man rooting through her underwear drawer, so that lets out me and Tony."

"I would definitely define Tony as a strange man," Adam agreed.

"Hardy har." Tony rolled his eyes.

"But you, sir, win the prize for thoughtfulness," Adam continued. "What do you think, Marie, do you trust me to go pack for you? Feel free to make any jokes you'd like linking my sexuality to my fashion sense. I promise not to be offended."

"I wasn't going to make any jokes," Marie said, utterly sincere. "But I don't think it'll work either, having someone pick up my clothes. It would be nice, but... well... I live at home, and I don't think... I don't think Mom or Dad would be too happy to see any of us."

"Shit, I had forgotten that," Adam said. 

Lopez frowned. "That isn't fair. You still deserve your things, even if your parents are being... I'm still happy to drop by and pick them up. I don't think they'll argue with me too much."

In Tony's opinion, that was extremely optimistic. But when Lopez caught his eye, he realized it wasn't so much that Lopez didn't expect an argument as it was Lopez expected to win the argument. He was so polite and unassuming most of the time that it was easy to forget that he could be just as stone-cold stubborn as any other SEAL. 

Tony could picture it going down -- the Wyndhams trying to shut the door in his face, only to find he could hold it open against the three of them combined; them shouting profanities at him as he very calmly made his way inside and to Marie's room. They'd doubtlessly manage to piss him off, but he wouldn't crack for even a second, just finish up the job he'd set out to do and leave them behind.

But Adam said, "Absolutely not. There is no way I'm letting you go deal with those assholes alone."

"Adam, I... I don't think there's a tactful way to put this, but I don't think you being there would make things easier," Lopez said, voice apologetic.

Adam actually laughed. "No, there's no tactful way to point out that my parents hate me. But it doesn't matter, anyway. It's the middle of the day. Dad and Derek should both be at work, and all my mom will do is cry. You said you weren't comfortable going through Marie's clothes -- "

"I didn't -- "

"That's what you meant, come on, I'm not stupid," Adam said, steamrolling over him. "And my family will make you a lot more uncomfortable, if they happen to be there. I can handle them -- if nothing else, they'll be so busy being nasty to me, they'll forget you're even there."

"That's not okay with me," Lopez said, beating Tony to the punch. "You don't get to volunteer to be abused."

"But you do?"

"I can handle myself."

"And so can I." 

Adam's posture was rigid, his voice flat, arms crossed over his chest. That was him at his most stubborn. Lopez must have recognized it -- he glanced at Tony again. But Tony couldn't give him the backup he was hoping for, because Adam had a point.

"If Adam is going, I should be the one to go with him," Tony said. "They're my in-laws, after all."

"Which is why neither of you should go," Lopez said. "Like it or not, there will be less friction if it's me. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but Marie deserves to be comfortable, so someone has to, so I will. End of story." He glanced at Tony, serious face on.

Tony held up his hands in a pre-emptive surrender. "You can pull rank on me, Chief, but Adam isn't enlisted." 

"I am stubborn, though. And Marie really hates fighting, so we should probably stop for her peace of mind. I'm coming with you. End of story." Adam crossed his arms over his chest, echoing Lopez's words, voice flat.

Lopez glanced at Marie, who did indeed look exhausted and nervous. "I don't want anyone to go if it'll be a problem. I don't want them to shout at any of you."

Adam reached down to grab her hand, and said with utter sincerity, "Don't you worry about a thing, darling. I'll protect Jay."

She giggled, and even Jay seemed to be fighting not to smile. Which, thankfully, broke the tension in the room. Tony let out a breath, and Adam gestured to the door. "Well, Chief?"

"Is there any chance I'll win this fight?" Lopez asked, and Tony shook his head.

"Usually when he's feeling that stubborn my options are give in or distract him, and I don't think you want to distract him the way I do."

Jay gave in and smiled for real, rolling his eyes at Tony a little. "Adam, you really don't have to come with me, but if you really insist..."

"I do." He leaned in to kiss Marie's cheek, then walked over to kiss Tony. "You mind waiting here alone for awhile?"

"Of course not. But for Chief Lopez's sake, will you promise me you'll _try_ not to get into it with your family?" Tony asked. He caught and held Adam's gaze.

Adam nodded. He didn't look away, which meant he really meant it. "I'll do my best to be good."

"Good." Tony leaned down to kiss him, but pulled back quickly. "Was that... were we doing that thing again?"

"Yeah, a little," Marie said. "It's sweet, though. I'm so glad Adam found someone."

Adam ducked his head a little, embarrassed. "Yeah, he's one of the good ones." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, uh, after you, Chief."

\--

Adam was sitting in the car silently, staring out the window and stewing on something. So, as they drove towards his parents' house, Jay gave up on his lingering, slight annoyance that Adam had insisted on coming and asked, "Why was it so important to you to come with me?"

"It's not, it... " Adam slumped back in his seat. "I don't know if I can explain, okay? It's just -- they're terrible. I know they are. And believe me, I'll be just as happy if they aren't there. But I don't want..."

He trailed off. Jay waited.

It took a minute, but Adam finally said, "I know it'll be bad. But I don't want you to see it all and... and have to wonder what you saw. What they said to you. Okay? I wish you weren't here at all, that you hadn't met them, and... It's so fucking embarrassing. No. Humiliating. It's fucking humiliating to have people I respect see this side of me."

"But it's not any side of _you_ ," Jay said.

"It's where I came from."

"It's where you _escaped_ from," Jay returned. "And if you think it reflects poorly on you, then you're, well, wrong. Because all I can think is, you came from all this, and you still had the compassion to come back and help Marie. Twice, now. You still managed to make a life for yourself, to find love, to make real friends. There's more love in your heart than hatred. And you certainly didn't learn that from your parents."

Adam shook his head, but didn't say anything else. Jay let it go. He didn't really understand, but this whole experience had been so rough on Adam, he couldn't blame him for being tense. It probably wouldn't have helped if he just came out and said what he thought the bottom line came down to: _I know your parents are racist. I don't blame you for what they say._

The GPS in Jay's phone provided directions to the house. Adam kept his gaze fixed on the window, and finally muttered, "This is so surreal. I haven't been back here since I was sixteen."

"Everything different?"

"Yeah. But no. Like. That strip mall didn't used to be there, but that gas station was," he said, as they stopped at a red light. "There's...there's more stuff, but the streets are the same. I don't know. I hate this whole town anyway. If I could, I'd just...I'd take Marie with me when I go and never come back here again."

"Hmm." Jay looked over at him before the light changed to green. "Have you talked to her about that? Or Tony? She needs to transfer to another long-term care facility, and we've got some of those in San Diego. If your parents... If they don't come around, she might be open to it."

"If," Adam snorted. "There's your generosity of spirit again, Jay. You still think there's a chance they'll get over themselves and remember they're supposed to love her. They won't. Fuck them for treating her like this."

It was Jay's turn not to have a response. He hated to admit it, but he believed Adam was right about his parents. It just seemed so wrong to Jay, like something out of one of Adam's movies instead of real life. Parents were supposed to love their children. It was supposed to be unconditional. And yet, they'd thrown Adam out of their lives, and here they were, about to do the same with Marie.

Jay hadn't known Adam at all until he was years into recovering from their abuse. He was clearly still messed up from the way they'd treated him, and from those years of poverty and homelessness, too -- but like Jay had said, he'd found love and friendship and carved out a slice of happiness for himself. But Marie... Marie's whole life had been steeped in their toxicity, and recovering from that would be at least as hard as recovering from the accident.

Yet Jay knew somewhere in his core, she'd be able to. Like Adam, if she chose to, she'd be able to find her own happiness. Adam would help, he had no doubt; Adam and Tony would provide family to make up for what she lost, and Jay... Jay would help them however he could, because Marie deserved better than this. 

They pulled up outside the house. There were a couple of beat up cars in the driveway and the lawn was slightly overgrown, but there were lovely flowerbeds and pretty curtains floating behind half-open windows. Jay slid out of the car and looked at Adam. He could actually see Adam steel himself, take a breath and square his shoulders. Preparing for combat.

It was Adam who led the way up the driveway to the small stoop and rang the bell. Jay couldn't imagine how hard and strange this had to be for him, to walk up to this house he'd been thrown out of more than half his life ago; and he really couldn't fathom what it would be like to have all of his childhood memories tainted by that. 

They both listened for sound inside but there wasn't any. Adam rang the bell again, and a minute later again. "Want to bet on whether or not I can annoy them into answering the door?" he asked, holding the bell down continuously.

"That might not be the best way to handle this," Jay said. "Did you try the knob?"

Adam laughed bitterly. "Mom changed the lock after she threw me out, I'm pretty sure."

He pushed the bell again, and this time, there was noise from within. Jay motioned at him to cut it out, and he did, waiting.

The door opened, but only a crack. Derek stood behind it.

"Look, we're --" Adam started, but Derek cut him off.

"Now is not a good time." He sounded stressed, which Jay assumed meant he was the delegate from his parents, and none of them wanted Adam there.

"Yeah, well, I'm here, so just put up with it for a few --"

"It's really. Not. A good time," Derek said. He was clenching his jaw, and he looked... not great, actually. Jay frowned to himself.

"I'm just here to pick up clothes for --"

"Not fucking now, Adam!"

"Screw this," someone snapped from behind him, moving. There was a horrible crunching sound and --

Derek fell to the floor, bleeding, and someone stood behind him with a gun in his hand. Jay moved out of sight from the door even as he realized what was going on. Fisher. _Shit._

"Get in here, or I'll shoot you," Fisher said flatly, opening the door.

Adam, bless him, didn't even glance at Jay, didn't give away that he wasn't alone. He just put his hands up and stepped in. The door slammed shut and Jay heard a deadbolt slide home. He immediate ducked low, just in case Fisher glanced out a window, and shuffled to where he knew he'd be out of sight. Then set his phone to silent and texted Tony.

_EMERGENCY fisher at house with gun, Derek unconscious, hostages - send police, ambulance, sirens off. I'm going in to handle it. Will call within 10 minutes._

His phone lit with a return almost immediately. _On my way. Adam ok?_

Jay didn't want to answer that, but had no choice. _Hostage. DON'T PANIC. That's all the info I have. More soon. Going in now._

He slid his phone into his pocket and wished there was somewhere more secure to stash it, then began making his way around the house. He couldn't hear anything from inside, and he hated it, but he had to trust Adam to hold it together. Adam wasn't stupid, he knew Jay would be more than capable of handling this -- but that, of course, assumed that Fisher wouldn't shoot him unless he had reason. From everything Jay had been told, Fisher was a violent offender, homophobic, and likely to blame anyone who he so much as thought sided with Marie. Jay needed to get inside, and he needed to do it immediately.

Breaking a window would be too loud, and on the first floor, they were all shut and latched. But there was an attached garage with its door rolled up, and it was crowded with boxes and mechanical equipment and he had no idea what else. Banking on there being a back door inside, he slipped in and picked his way through the junk silently.

Sure enough, there was a back door in through the garage. The hinges were rusty; apparently the Wyndhams didn't use it often, or the garage. It was certainly too full of stuff to park a car in. 

Jay turned the knob slowly. It creaked, but not too loudly -- and more importantly, it turned. The Wyndhams didn't use their garage, and they also didn't lock the back door. Well, thank god for their forgetfulness. The door itself didn't open easily -- probably why they hadn't bothered locking it. Jay had to push with most of his weight, and he had to do it slowly and evenly or else it would either creak or thud and he couldn't afford either. 

But finally it opened enough for him to slip in. He found himself in some kind of back room -- also full of junk, though it was more papers and books and a couple of ancient computers, with a washer and dryer close to the door. He picked his way through, careful to move silently, aware of everything, even his shadow. When that got too close to the open doorway, he ducked low and listened. He could smell something, too -- gas.

"I have money." Adam was easy to hear. He was speaking clearly, loudly -- projecting so Jay could hear him. 

"Do I look like I give a shit about money?" Fisher's voice was harder to make out. 

"Well you did time for armed robbery, so silly me, I figured you were stealing for profit," Adam said.

"Shut the fuck up, faggot, you don't know a fucking thing. Me and Marie -- I needed to show her, I needed to -- to be able to -- I was gonna take her on a vacation, show her I still loved her --"

"You're going to set her house on fire because you love her?"

That explained the gas smell. Good job with the exposition, Adam.

"That bitch killed our baby!" 

Jay dared a look down the hall. It opened to a kitchen, and on the far side of that, a dining room, and another room off at the side, out of Jay's sight. Adam was standing in front of the table, hands raised but not tied up -- yet. He kept cutting his gaze over to his parents, at the side of the room. They were both tied to dining room chairs, gagged, and Derek had been dragged into the room but left on the floor.

The hallway wasn't very long, and the kitchen wasn't exactly huge, and Jay was fast. But fast enough to get to Fisher before Fisher could aim and shoot that gun at him? Or worse, point it at one of the hostages.

Luckily, Fisher was facing away from Jay, towards Adam and the others. Jay slid out into the hall and held a finger to his lips for silence. Adam definitely saw him, but he couldn't tell if either of his parents did. Hopefully they'd be as on the ball as Adam was and not give him away. Adam looked over in their direction again, which Jay hoped they'd take as a warning.

But if none of them gave him away, something else must have, because Fisher started to turn towards him. 

"That bitch is my sister!" Adam shrieked, getting Fisher's attention back before he could spot Jay. "And how fucking dare you come here and -- and -- and lay a hand on her family, or --"

That was long enough. Jay was close enough. He ran the last few feet and hit Fisher like a truck, barreling into him and sending them both to the ground. He grabbed Fisher's gun arm as they fell, twisting it until it snapped, and then relieving him of the gun was an easy matter.

Except Adam screamed, "Look out!"

Jay grabbed the gun and turned, but he was too late. Fisher had had an accomplice, over at the side -- Adam had been glancing at _him_ , not his parents. And it was too late: the accomplice fired.

Jay felt like he was watching it happen in slow motion, aware of the bullet coming towards him before he could move, even though that was impossible. Pain exploded in his side and he doubled over, felt his knees buckle before he could get control of himself.

"You fucking idiot," the accomplice said. "You said no one would be here, you said no one else would come, and now we've got two extra fucking bodies to deal with."

Jay didn't move. He didn't relinquish his grip on the gun, either, but let them think he was out for the count. 

Fisher struggled up to his feet. "Motherfucker," he snarled, turning to kick Jay and connecting right where the bullet did. The pain was sharp and it took Jay's senses out for a moment, the world going black. Fisher must have grabbed the gun and kicked him again, because by the time he could see and hear he was on his back. "Who the fuck are you?"

"He's my friend," Adam said quickly, and his voice had gone quiet, hushed. Like for the first time, he was actually scared. "Don't hurt him, okay, I _can_ pay, I can pay whatever you want -- "

Jay still didn't move but the accomplice did, turning on Adam and smashing him hard across the cheek, the gun in his hand giving the blow more weight. Adam stumbled back, dazed, and fell against the table. 

"Get in that fucking chair and keep your mouth shut, cocksucker," the accomplice ordered. " _Fuck_ , Ford, you are so fucked. You get that he's famous? You get that the investigation will be way the fuck more intense -- "

"Like anyone will give a shit about some fag actor?" 

Jay snuck a glance up. Fisher and his accomplice were standing closer together now, not paying as much attention to him as they argued. 

"What about the brother in law who kicked your ass?"

"He didn't --" Fisher started, then swallowed it. "I don't fucking know where he is, but if we call from the fag's phone --"

"No!" Adam shouted. "Leave him out of this --"

"I told you to shut --"

"Because it's _my_ fault," Adam continued despite the fact that the accomplice was now aiming the gun right at him. "Marie called me and I told her to get the abortion. I talked her into it. I fucking paid for it. Leave everyone out of this, okay, no one else has to get hurt --"

"I'm going to fucking kill you." Fisher's voice had gone cold. A chill ran down Jay's spine and he knew he'd have to do something, make a move right now. "And your fucking family, and your fucking friend, and your motherfucking faggot lover."

And sure enough he, too, leveled his gun at Adam. He was holding it in his non-dominant hand -- Jay had broken his better arm -- but at a close enough range that that wouldn't make a difference. He was only a few feet away and Jay couldn't risk waiting another second. Ignoring the pain in his side, he launched himself to his feet. Fisher turned and fired at him, but the shot went wide and Jay slammed into him, this time smashing his fist into Fisher's skull, knocking it against the floor as they hit it, sending Fisher out cold. He grabbed the gun and rolled up to his knees, pointing it at the accomplice, who was now aiming directly back at him.

A standoff.

"Who the fuck are you?" the accomplice asked, apparently reassessing him. 

Adam began moving out of the chair, behind the accomplice. Quietly and confidently. Jay wanted to motion him not to, to just let him handle this, but he couldn't do that without giving away that Adam was moving. So instead it was his turn to be the distraction.

"A friend of Marie's and Adam's," he said instead. "And I've gotta say, man, can't you come up with a more creative gay slur than fag? It's getting a little boring."

Adam was on his feet now, right behind the man. Which was even worse, because now if Jay missed he was likely to hit Adam. But it was too late: Adam tapped the guy on the shoulder casually, and when the guy looked up, Adam clocked him.

It wasn't enough to knock him out, but it was enough for Jay to take the shot. And, thank god, his aim was true. He nailed the guy in shoulder of his gun-arm and he folded over. Jay sprang forward and pistol-whipped him, making sure it knocked him out, and then let himself fall back onto the floor -- into the puddle of blood. Which was as much his as it was anyone else's. Probably more.

And oh man, he hurt.

"Shit," he mumbled, giving in to his rare urge to swear. He looked up at Adam. "Call Tony. Tell him it's clear but we need the EMTs."

Adam didn't question him, just did it. Jay's vision started to go fuzzy but he listened: "It's me -- I'm safe, I'm okay, but fuck, Jay was shot, we need -- okay, yeah, I'll get the -- yeah, I can see the lights down the block, it's safe, they can come all the -- no, I really am okay. I really am, Tony, I swear."

He kept talking, explaining what had happened, but only for a minute. Then the EMTs were there, sweeping in and assessing what had happened. Jay tried to explain it all but couldn't quite get the words out, and when one of them pressed an oxygen mask to his face he gave in and just let them handle it, hoist him up on to a stretcher, and he made the mistake of shutting his eyes.

\--

Tony had genuinely believed he was going to die several times in his life, but getting the message from Jay telling him Adam was being held hostage by a madman was the first time his life had ever flashed in front of his eyes. But it didn't slow him down. He ran out of Marie's room, already calling 911 as he made his way to the garage.

Jay and Adam had the rental car. Tony finished with the emergency operator, staying on the line even though he kept checking to see if Jay had contacted him again yet, and he stared around the garage. Then told the operator, "Hold on a sec," and broke into the nearest car. 

He was reaching for the wiring that would get it running without the key when his phone rang again -- with Adam's ring. He swallowed anxiety and, force of habit during stressful situations, answered with only, "Vlachic."

And he'd never in his life been as relieved as when Adam answered, "It's me." The whole world came back into focus and he was so relieved he was actually shaking a little, sitting in the front seat of some stranger's car, barely able to believe it. Adam was okay.

But Jay wasn't. 

Instead of stealing the car, he wheeled around and made his way to the ER, and was there and waiting when the ambulance arrived. It was only a few minutes but his heart was in his throat. He knew Adam was okay, Adam was okay, and that helped, but Adam had no idea how bad Jay's gunshot wound was. Yes, he'd been up and moving afterwards, but there had been a lot of blood. Or so Adam had said.

The hospital crew tried to ignore Tony, intent on getting everyone in to surgery as needed, until Adam yelled his name. They wouldn't let Adam off the stretcher yet, but Tony shouldered past one and grabbed Adam's hand. Adam looked -- well, bruised, again. He had a nasty, swollen black eye, and he squeezed Tony's hand. 

Everything around them was barely controlled chaos, as Jay and the two other gunshot victims were stabilized and moved into triage for surgery. Tony clung to Adam for as long as he could. He knew he needed to get up and find out how Jay was, make sure Jay was okay, but right then he just needed -- he needed Adam.

Eventually, the police who'd showed up at the hospital demanded to talk to everyone who'd been involved and was still conscious to talk about it. Each of them, alone.

"I'll be fine," Adam assured him tiredly.

"You haven't even been x-rayed yet." Tony didn't want to let him go, even though Adam had gone rigid again, not quite pulling out of Tony's grasp, but definitely not leaning into him.

"Because I got punched in the face a little, not concussed." Adam sounded lethargic, and Tony shook his head stubbornly, worried.

"You could still be --"

"Tony. For Christ's sake." Now Adam did pull away, like he had after the fight with his father, too. "The cops need to talk to me, I'm okay, if I feel faint I'll scream for a doctor." He shot the cops a shit-eating smile. "And I scream loudly, gentlemen. But you, in the mean time -- have you told Marie what's happening, that we're all okay? Someone should."

Shit. Tony stood up guiltily. "I...may have run out of her room and not told her anything at all."

Adam gave a little snort of laughter. "So I'll talk to the nice policemen here, and then see a doctor if one happens to be available. You see if there's any word on Jay before you go talk to Marie-- you know she'll want to know."

Tony nodded. He leaned down to kiss Adam, ignoring the fact that the police, hospital workers, and Adam's parents almost all looked disgusted. At least Adam didn't pull away from that. "I'll be back soon. I love you."

"I love you too," Adam said, and made a little shooing motion.

Tony walked out, but stopped on the other side of the door, listening.

"Go ahead, _James_. Tell me it's disgusting. I don't give a shit."

He clenched a fist, straining to hear if Adam's father replied at all. Which he did: "Don't think that this -- any of it -- changes anything. You aren't welcome in my home."

"What a shame." He could hear Adam's eye roll. 

"Mr. Wyndham, we do need that statement," one of the cops said, and Tony tore himself away to get a status update on Lopez and then go talk to Marie. 

She'd been positioned sitting up in bed and was clutching her phone. "Tony, what the hell? No one would answer anything, you ran out of here like you were possessed, is everything okay?"

"I, uh, sorry." Shit, he'd bungled that. "There was a crisis at the house, I wasn't thinking. Everyone is going to be okay, but Fisher was there, with a gun and an accomplice and... Chief Lopez sent me the message, so I just took off."

"Oh my god," she gasped. "What happened?"

"Umm. I wasn't there -- obviously -- and it's been hard to get a straight explanation. Your parents are fine. Derek got a pretty nasty head wound and Adam got smacked around, but he says he's fine, too. Fisher and his accomplice were both shot and Chief Lopez..." He swallowed. "He was also shot. He's going to be okay -- it doesn't seem like anything vital was hit and he was still conscious when the EMTs got there -- but he's still in surgery."

Marie's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped. Tony braced himself for the onslaught of tears, but to his surprise, she actually seemed to gather herself up instead. "I need you to get a nurse or an aide right now. I need them to get me into a wheelchair. And then you're going to take me down to the OR waiting room."

"That's where your parents are too, with the cops, I don't know if --"

"Tony, please." She gazed up at him, jaw set, and it was obvious that stubborn determination ran in the Wyndham family. So he held up his hands in surrender. 

"On it. I'll be right back."

\--

Jay came to, his mind foggy but already spitting out a list of everything that needed to be done. Check in on everyone, call the senior chief, give his statement to the police, find a lawyer --

"Jay, are you... yes, he's awake."

That was definitely Adam's voice. Apologizing to Adam for not being quicker on the ball was on the list, too. Neither of them had expected to walk into a situation with a gunman, but he should have been prepared for it, should have checked more thoroughly and realized Fisher had an accomplice, should have reacted faster and taken them both out more quickly.

"Chief, you're going to be fine." That was Tony. "Nothing vital was hit, you just needed some blood, some stitches, and to have that pesky bullet removed. Not in that order. And I already called Chief Wolchonok."

Jay managed a wan smile. "Everyone okay?"

"Yeah, you knocked out Fisher and his friend both -- neither one fatally -- and that was the worst of it. Derek's concussed and they're keeping him under observation, but don't expect any complications. And Adam..."

Adam ducked into Jay's view. "Hey, Chief. I am, once again, bruised all to hell -- seriously, this trip has not been kind to my face -- but otherwise unharmed. The same can't be said of the car Tony broke into in an attempt to come provide backup."

Tony scratched the back of his neck. "Turned out to be Doc Rose's, actually. It's all good as long as I pay for the repairs."

Jay gave a little laugh at that, which made his whole body ache. "We must be her favorite patients."

"Yeah, she'll be pretty glad when we're out of here," Tony agreed. "Anyway, we should duck out -- the police need to talk to you, if you're up to it."

Jay sighed. "Yeah, might as well get that over with."

"Okay. We'll be back later." Adam smiled down at him, then over at someone else. "See, Marie? I told you, he's fine."

"Wait, Marie's here?" Jay pushed himself up in the bed, which hurt like crazy, but -- yeah. Marie was in a wheelchair at the far side of the room. The bruises from the car crash were starting to fade, and the hair that hadn't been shaved had been pulled back into a braid. He could see her stitches and where she'd be scarred, but there she was. "Hey. I didn't... didn't know you were here."

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay." She reached up and wiped at her eyes. "I'm so sorry you... I'm sorry they..."

"Hey, hey." He smiled at her. "Marie, look at me. Okay? Look at me." He waited until she did, until she caught his gaze and held it. "I'm fine. I'm just sorry I couldn't actually get those clothes for you."

She let out a surprised laugh and wiped the last few tears from her cheeks. "Yeah, you should have remembered to do that, between saving my parents' lives and stopping my ex-husband from burning down my house. I'm really disappointed in you, Jay."

He grinned at her, and she smiled back, and she still hadn't broken eye contact. It was a little bit like the rest of the world didn't exist. He didn't even ache so much with her smiling at him like that.

Like he was the only man in the world.

Jay blushed and swallowed. "I'll be up and around in no time so I'll... I'll zip over and take care of that for you."

"Yeah, and maybe you could run some errands for me, too. Do some grocery shopping. You know, since you'll be up and around anyway." She laughed again, and finally broke eye contact so she could look over at Adam. "You were right."

"I usually am," Adam said.

"Do I want to know?" Jay asked Tony, who chuckled.

"Adam said all SEALs are crazy and refuse to acknowledge our mortality," Tony said. "Frankly, I have no idea what he's talking about. I am perfectly sane."

"You once directly disobeyed doctor's orders and drove three hours to ask me on a date," Adam reminded him. He turned to Marie. "Doctor's orders because he had recently been shot and badly infected, wasn't recovered yet, and oh yeah, he passed out on a stranger's doorstep before he even got to me. Lucky thing for him I found it endearing."

"Yeah, you did," Tony said, grinning, an arm snaking out to catch Adam around the waist. "And yeah, I am lucky, babe."

They did that soulmate stare thing again, but Jay couldn't bring himself to find it anything but sweet. Especially not when he looked back at Marie and saw her smiling, too. 

She cleared her throat after a moment. "We should let Jay give his statement so he can rest. And Jay? You had better stay in bed until the doctor says you can get out."

"Only if you promise you'll come visit me again," he said, the words falling out of his mouth before he could stop them. 

"It's a deal," she said.

And despite the stitches in his side, Jay felt warm and content as Adam wheeled her out.

\--

Tony and Adam wheeled Marie to her new room in the long-term care wing, and headed back to the ER waiting room to see if there were any updates. Derek had finished his CAT scan -- he was okay -- and both Fisher and his accomplice had gotten through their surgeries. They were recovering, but under police watch. 

And Adam's parents were both still sitting in the waiting room. Waiting for Derek, presumably.

Adam sighed and squeezed Tony's hand, then walked over towards them. "So today was eventful, huh?"

His parents exchanged looks, and his mother finally said, "Did you really pay for... _that_?"

"Does it matter?" Adam asked, then shook his head. "No, silly me, of course it does. Let me guess. What you really want to know if you can blame _me_ for Marie getting an abortion, because hey, you hate me anyway, it's a lot easier than hating Marie, right? So yes, Mom. It's true. Marie called me, and she was terrified, so I promised her I'd support her however she needed -- financially _and_ emotionally. She probably wouldn't have gone through with it if no one had been there for her, but I was, so she did. Go ahead and blame me, because I honestly don't give a shit what you think of me."

"Adam -- "

"But you know what I do give a shit about?" He steamrolled over her, and Tony braced himself. "I give a shit that Marie went through with it because she was terrified of Fisher -- and now you have definitive proof she had every reason to be. He would have killed _all_ of you. So look me in the eye and tell me you think she was wrong. That you can't understand why she did it."

Neither of them answered for a long time. Tony had thought he'd already expected the worst from them, but he couldn't believe that. Fisher had literally tried to kill them.

But the silence got longer and longer.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Tony finally spat, the temper he'd held in check since his arrival finally breaking through. He was definitely louder than he intended, because people turned around and stared, but he didn't care. "What the hell is wrong with you people? Parents are supposed to love their children. And if you can't do that, then... then you never deserved Adam _or_ Marie."

"Sweetheart, is now a good time to ask if you'd mind Marie to coming stay with us for awhile?" Adam asked.

"She can stay for as long as she needs to," Tony said. He shot a glare at Adam's parents, who were watching in stony silence. "In fact, why don't you go invite her now? I'll be right behind you."

Adam raised his eyebrows, but said, "Sure, see you in a few."

Tony waited until he'd reached the elevators before turning back to Adam's parents. "So, here's the deal. You have two choices. Option A, you do the decent thing and remember that you love your daughter. You come upstairs with me and tell her so. Adam and I leave as soon as everything is settled with the police and Jay is able to travel, and we don't come back. And as long as you don't interfere with Adam and Marie's relationship, you never have to deal with Adam or me again."

"Who the hell are you to --" his father started.

"I'm your son-in-law, is who the hell I am," Tony snapped. "Option B, asshole, is that you're a pathetic fucking scumbag. When Adam and I leave, we convince Marie to come with us and do her PT in San Diego. Forget whether or not you want to speak to her again, you don't _get_ to. You never see or hear from her or Adam again. They don't answer your calls. They don't send you birthday cards. You're dead to them, no matter how much you regret it down the line. Option B is that _they_ disown _you_ , and never look back."

"We can't just forgive her for -- for killing her baby," Mrs. Wyndham said, her voice heavy, brink of tears. "Fisher is a madman, but she's a killer, too."

Tony stared at her in disgust. "Option B it is. Let's hope Derek never makes a choice you disagree with, or you're out three for three, huh?" He turned to walk out, but paused and looked back at them. "You know what the hardest part of being married to Adam is? Thanks to growing up with you assholes, he's still convinced that someday I'll leave him. But I never will, because I actually know what love is. Jesus, if you two didn't disgust me so much, I'd feel bad for you."

Then he walked away, heart heavy, because now he had to go tell Marie. But that was why he'd done it like this, why he'd sent Adam away first. He'd expected it to go even worse, to be even more hateful, and he was done with the Wyndhams' bullshit. From now on, he was standing between them and Adam and Marie. If they wanted to scream vulgarities, recriminations and blame, spew hate... well, he could handle it, and he would protect his family from it.

He steeled himself before he let himself into Marie's room. Adam was sitting on the edge of her bed, re-braiding her hair. They both looked at him expectantly, and he realized they knew exactly what news he was coming to break.

"I'm so sorry," he started. "But I talked to your parents, and..."

"And they don't want to see me," Marie finished for him. "It's okay. It's what I expected."

"It's not okay. Nothing about it is okay," Tony said. "Nothing about the way they're treating you -- the way they've treated Adam --"

"Sweetheart." Adam stood up, took his hand, and squeezed it. "Thank you for being outraged on our behalves, and so optimistic you didn't think it would happen like this."

Tony pulled Adam into his arms and kissed his temple. "I'm sorry, Adam."

"But there's a silver lining," Adam said, turning to face Marie without actually stepping away from Tony. Tony kept Adam pressed close to him and tried not to think about Adam being held hostage by Fisher, about how differently that situation could have ended. "Marie took me up on the invitation to come stay with us in San Diego. We'll find her the medical stuff she needs -- Jay told me earlier we should be able to -- and this way I'll have some company while you're deployed. Win-win."

"After I finish the PT, I'm sure I'll be able to get a teaching job, subbing if nothing else," Marie said. "Once I'm up on my feet, I'll get out of your hair, you don't need to worry I'll be living there forever --"

"I'm not even a little bit worried," Tony interrupted her. "And by the way, I'm from a huge, crazy family. My folks adore Adam -- seriously, they might love him more than they love me --"

"Not quite," Adam interrupted, laughing a little.

"Close enough," Tony said. "Anyway, consider this an open invitation. I know they'll love you, too."

"Thank you," she said, and apparently that was what made her tear up. Adam twisted to kiss Tony's cheek and then went back to her bedside, to her hair.

"Anyway, let's get this finished up for you, then find an aide to make sure you get nice and cleaned up before your date downstairs with Chief Lopez," he said, running right over any awkwardness.

"Oh my god, it's not a date," Marie said, blushing bright red. "Don't be a jerk."

"Who's being a jerk? And it is so a date," Adam said. He glanced up. "Tony?"

"Yeah, I'm not playing referee on this one," Tony said. "But for what it's worth, Marie, I've never seen Chief Lopez look at anyone the way he looks at you."

\--

The logistics turned out to be the most difficult part. Between talking with the police and finding somewhere for Marie to do PT in San Diego and figuring out how she would be able to travel, the four of them who were hoping to leave within a couple of days were all even more stressed out.

Marie's room had become the base of operations, once Jay was up and out of bed. Which hadn't taken long. He was strong and resilient, and the blood loss had been worse than the injury itself. They were all gathered there and on the phone with different people when Derek came in.

He was silent for a long moment. Tony was able to finish his call with a quick, "Hang on, call you back in a few," and glare him down. He looked... well, exhausted. Like Marie, part of his head had been shaved and he was sporting a line of stitches. He was also dragging a giant suitcase and a smaller rollerboard with him, with a cardboard box balanced awkwardly on top of it.

"What do you want?" Adam asked him, not bothering to mask his hostility.

Derek stared around the room, his gaze finally landing on Marie, before he looked out the window. "I brought some of Marie's things. Everything I could fit in her luggage. It's not... it's not everything, but I figured... it's a start, anyway, I guess. I can ship the rest. If you want."

Tony looked over at Adam and Marie, not sure what the hell was going on. Marie said, "Thank you. Are you... is your head..."

"Fine. I mean, it will be, it just...bled a lot, because... head wounds do, I guess." Derek shoved his hands in his pockets. "Anyway, um, I just... thought you'd want some of your things. And the box is stuff of Adam's, uh, I don't know if you even want any of it, but..." He glanced at Adam, then away. "It's just like... old pictures and books and shit."

"Oh." Adam blinked a few times. "I figured Mom got rid of everything."

"Yeah, she... she gave most of your stuff to the Salvation Army."

Adam snorted. "Figures."

"But some of it she just shoved into boxes and... she tossed most of them, but... some of them ended up in the attic." Derek shrugged. "Anyway, uh, that's... that's what I came by for, so I'll... I just wanted to... just, say goodbye, I guess."

Tony held his breath, afraid that even exhaling would shatter the strange feeling in the room. It was hard to get a read on Derek's mood, but Adam's eyes had gone shiny and his expression was shocked. 

Marie finally said, "Thank you. It means a lot and... you know you can still call me, Derek. You can still be my brother, if you want to."

"I do, I just... It's hard to..." He trailed off, and it sounded like _he_ might cry. "I will. I'll call you. And I'll..." He looked at Adam again. "I'll call you, too, okay? Unless you don't want me to."

Adam stared, mouth open for a second. Then nodded. "Yeah. That would be... fine. For you to call."

"Okay," Derek said. He took a few deep breaths. "I'll... I'll box up the rest of your things and... call."

He all but ran out of the room after that, not waiting for anyone to say anything else. The silence in the room continued for a long minute.

"That was... not something I ever expected," Adam said finally.

Marie put a hand on his. "He grew up with them, too."

Adam nodded. "I guess this means I should stop calling him a nazi."

Tony couldn't help it. He laughed a little, and a second later Adam started laughing too. Adam met his eyes, and smiled, just a little, but it was a real, genuine smile, and it felt like the first one in days.

\--

When the attendant announced pre-boarding, Jay wheeled Marie to the counter, Tony and Adam following with all of their carryon. Arranging the logistics had been a nightmare, but he and Marie were both officially fit to fly, the police had all the information they needed for now (though Jay wouldn't be shocked if they all ended up flying back within a few months), and Tony and Adam were eager to get home.

The attendant checked their boarding passes, then said to Marie, "Oh. It'll take a minute. I have to call someone to bring an aisle chair to help you get to your seat." 

"Oh. We're not in a rush," Marie answered quickly. 

"We did call ahead, though, and make sure your airline knew we'd need the help," Tony said, annoyed.

"Well, we need the chair." The attendant gave them a dead eyed glower.

"I _know_ that, but we called ahead --"

"Chickie, it's fine," Jay interrupted. "We're not in a hurry, we can wait, or worst comes to worst, I mean, I can just carry Marie."

"Oooh, romantic," Adam said, smirking at them. 

"I don't want to be a bother," Marie said.

"It's no bother at all," Jay assured her. He glanced at the others, then shrugged, and scooped Marie out of the chair.

"That's not exactly regulation," the gate attendant said, still sounding annoyed. But she rolled her eyes and added, "Whatever."

"What an unpleasant person," Adam mused, wheeling luggage in behind them. "But hey, plus side, you get some practice for eventually carrying some lucky lady across the threshold." 

"Funny," Jay said, and set Marie down in one of the seats near the front. They'd reserved four together -- two rows of two, up in first class where they'd all have enough room to be comfortable. Or as comfortable as flying with a recent gunshot wound could be, anyway.

"You two mind sitting together?" Adam asked, already settling in the seat behind Marie. "I'm a nervous flyer, so I need to clutch Tony's hand."

"Seriously?" Jay asked.

"Seriously." Tony rolled his eyes, and Adam shot him a scowl.

"So much for ever getting Adam to go skydiving with you," Jay laughed.

"That was never going to happen anyway, since I'm not _crazy_ ," Adam said. "And sane people do not jump out of airplanes."

"I always kind of wanted to," Marie said.

"Wait, for real?" Adam leaned up between the two head rests.

"Yeah. I mean, it always looked exciting," Marie said. 

"Once you're done with PT, you could go for it," Jay said. "I'd go with you, if you want."

"You would?"

"Sure." Jay smiled at her, and she smiled back. "Any other extreme sports you want to try? Roller derby, maybe? You've got the punk rock hair for it."

She laughed a little. "Actually, I always thought Fisher's motorcycle was kind of cool, but he never let me ride it." 

Jay turned around to look at Tony. "Does Silverman still have that bike?"

"Yup. And his girlfriend hates it, so I'm pretty sure he'd be willing to give it out on semi-permanent loan," Tony said.

"Oh my god, you two lunatics are _not_ teaching my sister to ride a motorcycle," Adam said.

"Well, I'm not, but it sounds like Lopez is," Tony said.

"Jay, if you're trying to impress her so you can ask her out, keep in mind you already got shot heroically," Adam said, before sinking back into his seat.

Jay blushed. "I wasn't... I just thought it might be fun," he said. Then, to Marie, "Trust Adam to make things awkward."

"Yeah, seems like his specialty." But Marie looked at Jay and said, "There is one thing I really want to do, though. If you don't mind."

"Sure, anything," Jay said.

Marie bit her lip for a second. Then she took Jay's hand, leaned in, and kissed him. Very quickly, and very gently, on the lips. 

He blinked at her.

"I haven't been on a date in a long time. Since Fisher," she explained. "And you've been so sweet, and I just... I really wanted to kiss you. I hope you don't mind --"

Jay kissed her. Just as gently as she'd kissed him, but not so quick. In fact, he let it linger, his lips against hers, until her mouth opened and she let him kiss her more deeply.

Remarkably, there was no commentary from the peanut gallery behind them.

When Jay finally drew back, he just looked at her for a long minute. She was breathing hard, her cheeks were red, her eyes were wide, and she was smiling. 

"Would you like to go out sometime, Marie? I was thinking maybe we could start with dinner while you're still in PT, and work our way up to the skydiving." Jay squeezed her hand.

"That sounds really nice," she said. "It's a date."

"Fucking finally, hallelujah!" Adam crowed behind them

"Hush, let them have their moment," Tony said.

Marie giggled. "Sorry my brother's a loudmouth," she said, leaning in to Jay's side a little. "You're blushing, by the way. It's very cute."

"You're blushing too," he said, but that was about as much conversation as they could manage. Other passengers were streaming on board now, shoving bags past them, complaining and pushing. Jay sighed and settled into the seat, his fingers still entangled with Marie's. Behind him, Tony said something to Adam about the choice being booze or Xanax, and the flight attendants began checking to make sure everyone was prepared for take off.

"Ready to go home?" Marie asked him.

"Yeah," he agreed, and looked over at her. "Are you?"

She blinked a few times, glanced back at Adam and Tony, then looked back at Jay. She took a deep breath and said, "Yeah, actually, I think I am."

**Author's Note:**

> Expanding on what's in the tags. Spoilers included.
> 
> \-- Homophobia: Adam's family is VERY homophobic. There are a lot of slurs used, and references to some of it being religious.
> 
> \-- Racism: Adam's father uses a racist slur towards Jay. 
> 
> \-- Abortion: Adam's sister had an abortion several years prior to the start of the fic and is conflicted about it. Her family refers to it as murder.


End file.
